Classic car status

[Admin-bloke]

Should scrap car tax altogether. The tax on fuel is bad enough and justifies the tax on use.

Classic car doing 1000miles a year is still less polluting than a modern car doing 20,000+

Car tax is an ownership tax and good old Gov likes to keep an eye on you.

[jamesrguk]

Going forward I'm not quite sure where the tax revenue's going to come from as we move to home generation, storage and electric vehicles.

Sorry, going off topic.

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[Rissy]

zero "road tax" for electric vehicles will be temporary thing. It's ridiculous as it is. Wheels on the road irrespective of what drives those wheels and all that. Eventually when there is many many more electric vehicles on the road, and hardly any fossil fuel driven cars, you can bet your ass they'll add back a tax for electric vehicles. They'll also be able to detect when you're using your home electricity supply for domestic use, or for charging your vehicle, and they'll charge you different rates accordingly. This is one of the reasons for the beginnings of smarts meters in peoples houses. People will attempt to cheat that, but then they'll marry up the figures relating to miles done in a vehicle, and the times charged. Vehicles will also hold a record of where they've been charged from and for what level of charge. All the little nooks and crannies will be covered to find out the cheats. They'll get their money. That's one thing you can be sure of.

[jamesrguk]

zero "road tax" for electric vehicles will be temporary thing. It's ridiculous as it is. Wheels on the road irrespective of what drives those wheels and all that. Eventually when there is many many more electric vehicles on the road, and hardly any fossil fuel driven cars, you can bet your ass they'll add back a tax for electric vehicles. They'll also be able to detect when you're using your home electricity supply for domestic use, or for charging your vehicle, and they'll charge you different rates accordingly. This is one of the reasons for the beginnings of smarts meters in peoples houses. People will attempt to cheat that, but then they'll marry up the figures relating to miles done in a vehicle, and the times charged. Vehicles will also hold a record of where they've been charged from and for what level of charge. All the little nooks and crannies will be covered to find out the cheats. They'll get their money. That's one thing you can be sure of.

(apologies I know we're way of topic)

You're quite right, road tax will eventually move to include electric vehicles, they use and cause wear & tear to the road surface as much as any internal combustion vehicle (not that all road tax revenue just goes to the roads of course).

I just don't see how the government can re-coup the lost petrol tax revenues when people are charging at home and becoming more self sufficient with home energy storage solutions growing in popularity.

A local friend with his Tesla PowerWall and Solar array is pretty much off grid as far as electricity goes, he's techno geek rather than initially looking to save money, he bought his PowerWall installation a few years back when there weren't many other options. But he recently bought a BMW i3 so he's now pretty much self sufficient between home electricity generation and use, charging his car off the PowerWall and occasionally topping up at work.

Even if he paid £500-£1000+ per year road tax it would still be less than he would be contributing to the public finances through duty & VAT on traditional fuels over the course of a year, with even a moderate commute.

It's certainly going to be and interesting job for the chancellor in the future, no solution will fit all (not that it ever has).

J

[Admin-bloke]

zero "road tax" for electric vehicles will be temporary thing. It's ridiculous as it is. Wheels on the road irrespective of what drives those wheels and all that. Eventually when there is many many more electric vehicles on the road, and hardly any fossil fuel driven cars, you can bet your ass they'll add back a tax for electric vehicles. They'll also be able to detect when you're using your home electricity supply for domestic use, or for charging your vehicle, and they'll charge you different rates accordingly. This is one of the reasons for the beginnings of smarts meters in peoples houses. People will attempt to cheat that, but then they'll marry up the figures relating to miles done in a vehicle, and the times charged. Vehicles will also hold a record of where they've been charged from and for what level of charge. All the little nooks and crannies will be covered to find out the cheats. They'll get their money. That's one thing you can be sure of.

Yep. The 'Smart' meters will give opportunity for "variable pricing" (paying more on peak times) and "monitoring" your use to the nearest minute.

[jerzybondov]

I just started looking into this historic MOT/tax stuff as it means I'll also be exempt from the ULEZ. As of April next year it'll cost me £25 to leave my house in the DeLorean if it's not exempt.

Found this online - stating that if your V5 states your registration between 1st and 7th January 1981 then you'd be good to get historic tax exemption by April 2021. Perfect timing! I remember my V5 is start of Jan! (despite the car being a Nov 81 build).
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... hicles.pdf

Only I pull my V5 out and it turns out that for no apparent reason, date of first registration is the 10th Jan 1981. So because of those random THREE ARBITRARY DAYS I'd basically have a year of not really being able to use the car - or not particularly wanting to given how much it would cost. Come back home on a different day and that's £25 more.

What a massive pain.

[DMC1983]

Well that sucks.

However, when this discussion arose on a facebook group, I remember one guy (who had a feb 81 date) claim he had spoken with the dvla and they said (apparently) that its a rolling date. So come feb 2021, he could apply and classic status would be granted. So theres hope.
I cant really confirm if what he said was true but its not the first time ive heard of a rolling date (and it even says it in the first line of the linked doc). We all know that the website is only ever updated/changed at the start of the tax year (and i believe its just an example template anyway). So its possible (worse case scenario) the earliest any of us can apply would be 1st april 2021 anyway. That doc you link to however only shows an "example" of Feb 80. It does however state that if the V5 shows the car was made/first registered jan 1st 40yrs ago then it qualifies. So i would think worst case for you jez (taking into consideration of the rolling date) is you have to wait till week 2 of 2021 to apply.

My V5 shows jan 1st 1981 (even though its an oct 81 and i even sent them a picture of the door VIN plate. Crazy right?). I plan on speaking with the dvla soon regarding all this and will report back once ive done so and know more.

[Rissy]

There's no question it's a rolling date. Right now, as of April 2020, the year in question, is 1980. As of April 2021, the year in question will be 1981. Hence it's rolled forwards by 1 year. It has to do this to keep with the proposition of the age of the vehicle being 40yrs of age in relation to the year we are inhabiting at the time. BUT. You still cannot even apply until the beginning of April, once the tax year threshold has been met of the 40th year for the vehicle, and it's only worth doing so, if your vehicle was built by the 1st of January of that same year, or registered by the 8th of January of that same year. In theory, no single DeLorean owner out there, except for perhaps owners of a couple of "prototype" or "test cars" or whatever you want to call them, should be able to even apply and succeed until April 2022. But as has been said by some; they have a V5 which states registered or built before the curfew points for 2021, meaning they can by sheer fluke, get their entitlement earlier than everyone else by a clear year. That little bombshell is simply down to the incompetence of the DVLA (the very fact they even ignore someone showing them the evidence by way of a photograph and trying to be honest simply doubles down more on how much they either don't care, or can't be bothered getting it correct). I'd be interested to know what Insurance companies may make of that if the same vehicle is involved in an accident. As you know; insurance companies need very little excuse or reason to void peoples insurance if it's going to save them a quick buck. With the way things are right now, and look to be continuing to be for some time due to Covid, it looks like there may be very little reason to have old cars out on the road probably until at least 2022 anyway, without much in the way of events and what not to go to. Save for just driving around randomly of course.

[DMC1983]

I sent them an A4 colour printout so its not like it couldnt be read. They also sent it back to me too along with pretty much everything else i sent them.

[jerzybondov]

I sent them an A4 colour printout so its not like it couldnt be read. They also sent it back to me too along with pretty much everything else i sent them.

Ryan - If you could clear up the rolling date issue (month vs year) when you talk to them that would be amazing. If you can answer the January 10th 1981 registration question (i.e. is it April 2021 or April 2022 to qualify) then that will also clear up the issue for everyone else with a non-jan 1st registration date in 1981!