33 replies to this topic

[scubajimbo]

In case folk haven't seen proposal petition to change road tax exemption to 20years instead of current 40.

[scubajimbo]

https://petition.par...etitions/654884

[scubajimbo]

https://www.google.c...tax-change/amp/

[stuart bowes]

seems pretty unlikely to be honest really, they would lose huge amounts of revenue surely, not to mention loads of medium age cars getting away with no ulez

 

that would mean my 2001 volvo v70 is a 'classic' which seems a bit wrong somehow 

[beardylondon]

I think 20 is too soon, 30 years is more likely.

 

As nice as it would be, it wouldn't make sense, as the government would loose lots of money in road tax.

[mab01uk]

We may well have a car hating Labour government in power soon again and the last time they got re-elected back in 1998....shortly after Gordon Brown in his first budget as Chancellor froze the previously 'rolling historic vehicle tax exemption 25 year date' introduced by the Tories, on their logic that only rich/wealthy people owned polluting classic cars....

 

Many years later when the Conservatives regained power they reinstated it at 40 years as a rolling date again .....

 

Gordon Brown also encouraged drivers with budget tax incentives to buy diesel cars to save the planet and we all know how that ended.....

 

 

[mab01uk]

Old cars are punctured by Brown's classic move.

 

Newspaper article from 29 March 1998

 

"THE FORMER Tory chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, became the patron saint of classic car drivers after exempting motor vehicles (including cars, lorries, buses and motorcycles) more than 25 years old from paying the annual road fund licence in his 1995 Budget.

Now Gordon Brown has made himself a candidate for a classic hate figure in the classic car movement. Tucked away in the small print of the Budget was a clause restricting the exemption in future to cars that were registered up to and including 1972.

 

Cars registered in 1973 that owners were hoping would qualify for tax exemption next January (cars, like racehorses, are deemed to have their birthdays on 1 January regardless of their actual date of production) will not now become exempt, dashing the hopes of tax-free motoring for an estimated 15,000 owners of 1973 cars still on the road. Each following year will add to the army of owners who will still have to pay if they want to keep their old cars on the road.

 

The new rules will save the revenue just over £2m, but the Chancellor's aim has little to do with revenue raising. The decision to stop the rolling exemption is intended to discourage drivers from keeping old cars on the road on the grounds that they pollute the environment, a claim that classic car owners vigorously dispute.

 

The new rules may persuade some owners to scrap cars that will no longer qualify for exemption from the road fund tax, and will have a significant impact on classic car prices. In time they will create a new category of "classic" cars reflecting their tax-exempt status. But the cut-off date will inevitably create anomalies. Several popular models, including the MGB and Midget and the Mark 3 Cortina were in production before and after the cut-off date, and models built in 1972 and earlier will now become considerably more desirable than identical models of the same vehicle constructed in and after 1973.

Car enthusiasts claim that the change is unnecessary because the leaded petrol used by most pre-1980s cars will be withdrawn from sale in 2000, and classic cars will then have to convert to lead-free fuel or use lead substitutes anyway."

https://www.independ...ve-1153159.html

 

 

[PoolGuy]

Everyone wants a pay rise, no one wants the retirement age to increase but they want to pay less tax, you couldn't make it up.

[Bobbins]

It’s a little surprising that 20 years has been used in the petition, the generally accepted age at which a car gains classic status is 25 years and this would have been more appropriate.

[Quinlan minor]

Might as well petition for the rain to stop.

[Bobbins]

Yes please 🙏

[MatthewsDad]

We need to be careful about what we wish for. Historic vehicles' tax free status is a privilege not a right. If it is mainstreamed by relaxing the threshold it's more likely to come under scrutiny from the anti-car lobby. 40 years is indisputable, 20 opens up a can of worms.

[Homersimpson]

We need to be careful about what we wish for. Historic vehicles' tax free status is a privilege not a right. If it is mainstreamed by relaxing the threshold it's more likely to come under scrutiny from the anti-car lobby. 40 years is indisputable, 20 opens up a can of worms.

Absolutley this, if a lot of noise is made by people trying to get 20 year old cars made tax exempt then it will shine a spotlight on the whole tax exemption thing which might get it cancelled for all of us.

 

I daily a 2007 Fiesta (60 mile commute) and its ridiculous to think that people are suggesting that in three years it should be tax exempt.
 

[Spider]

For what ever it's worth, in Australia, as best I know all states have a 25 year rolling period.

[mab01uk]

As I mentioned above before the UK classic car tax exemption was first introduced by the Conservative government in 1995 set at a rolling 25 year period.

In 1998 the new Labour government froze it at 25 years for cars at the time that were registered up to and including 1972.

 

Many years later when the Conservatives regained power back from Labour they reinstated it at 40 years as a rolling date again.

 

With a Labour government likely back in power soon with their even stronger desire for 'Net Zero' and anti-car policies there is unlikely to be any changes to classic car status other than to reduce the current levels of exemption.

Edited by mab01uk, 16 March 2024 - 10:18 AM.