17 replies to this topic

[maher the hermit]

just had my tax reminder for my 24v manta £112.75 for six months or £205 for twelve months. looks like another year of sorn for me thats a pi55 take for a classic car i only do less that a thousand miles a year..... and what with the price of fuel i cant afford to use it more. no wonder manta ownership or any other classic is getting less and less

[smiffy220]

Yep, we can thank good old Gordon Brown for that. One of the first things he did in 1997 was freeze the exemptions for cars over 25 years old from vehicle excise duty. Git!!

[paul1393]

The Tory's did promise to re-instate the concession if re-elected....Seems they have forgotten that one!

[Sutty2006]

Time to have a swift word with Dave C about that one....

[Cavtastic]

The country owes too much money to the rest of the world, think this claasic car tax brings in about £200 million a year, you can house quite a lot of pond life for that sort of dosh. Well done Gord you simply will go down in history as the worst we ever had.

[smiffy220]

paul1393, on 08 September 2010 - 08:18 PM, said:

The Tory's did promise to re-instate the concession if re-elected....Seems they have forgotten that one!

Thing is mate, we haven't got the Tories in power, only a Con/Lib alliance, so no chance of them sticking to that one!

[Rick-Manta]

I could happen somewhere down the line. Even as a coalition, most of our decisions can go through fairly easily although not quite as easy as Blair had things in 1997, in fact no way near with the majority he had. This is actually thanks to the Lib Demos whos MPs will abstain from voting in anything they are against but will vote to support anything they, well.. support! I'm a conservative party member, supporter and activist, but I would personally thank and genuinely appreciate any Lib Demo whos efforts have made this coalition successful.

The problem now is that the being left in such a financial mess would mean any tax cuts (which is traditionally high up on the agenda) have to wait unless bigger savings could be made as a result of the cut. Take the speed cameras for example, the way they were run was the standard new labour quango setup. Most people did seem to beleive they pay for themselves in the way of fines but they had 'safety camera partnerships' which absorbed all the money instead of returning it to central government, so with the exception of some income tax from the non GDP contributing jobs in these partnerships, the whole enterprise had to be paid for by taxpayers, hence why the cameras are now being dropped, so local councils down have to fork out for them. I'm pretty sure most people are in favor of this, although to my surprise the AA have been moaning on the news, so I will certainly never sign up with them again!

The Tories did promise an end to the war on motorists, classic car tax will be considered at some point but I know for certain it won't be anytime soon. I'd like to know what'll happen to fuel prices, I hope they'll be a cut in the fuel duty when the VAT increase comes in to counter it for private motorists, but the emphasis is for the British transport industry who will save on fuel costs in this case, and it's about time.

[Mrbus]

This convo could go on forever but i'm pretty sure it will end in a similar saying like "this country is f****d

[Rick-Manta]

Oooh, i forgot about those blasted wheel clamper extortionists being banned, it was on watchdog last night and reminded me. Another plus to the motorist and more to come.

SPEED CAMERAS
CLAMPING ENFORCEMENT

[smiffy220]

Rick-Manta, on 10 September 2010 - 02:36 PM, said:

Oooh, i forgot about those blasted wheel clamper extortionists being banned, it was on watchdog last night and reminded me. Another plus to the motorist and more to come.

SPEED CAMERAS
CLAMPING ENFORCEMENT

Good start, I am liking this list. So to add, we need free car tax for cars over 20 years old, petrol prices reduced to £0.50p a litre, a ban on caravans and JCB's on dual carriageways, and roadworks only to be done at night at weekends!! Whats the chances??

[Mrbus]

smiffy220, on 10 September 2010 - 02:43 PM, said:

Good start, I am liking this list. So to add, we need free car tax for cars over 20 years old, petrol prices reduced to £0.50p a litre, a ban on caravans and JCB's on dual carriageways, and roadworks only to be done at night at weekends!! Whats the chances??

Too good to be true. Its good to dream though. Gives you something to live for lol

[Rapierdave]

One suggestion by a classic car magazine was that all cars over 25 years old would pay a flat rate fee of £50 per annum.
I currently have two classic cars, my 1972 Sunbeam Alpine Fastback & my 1980 Cavalier Sportshatch that would save me £105 PA
I think this proposal could work although i'm sure some owners of pre 1973 cars would object.

Edited by Rapierdave, 10 September 2010 - 05:24 PM.

[opel2000]

I wouldn't be too harsh on wheel clampers, for those that have had businesses suffer from ignorant twats that have no idea of the simple decency yet alone legality of blocking people in and out of a business, wheel clampers can be a Godsend, especially when the Police and Council take no action and it wasn't until I started getting into fights with these ignorant gits that the Police took some action, hindsight says I should have got clampers involved.

That however does not excuse the robbing threatening thieving gits that give the genuine service providers a bad name.


Going back to Raod Tax....
Could not belive the other year when the talk was about "Taxing people for the distance they drive everyone seemed to miss the point that we already are TAXED BY THE DISTANCE WE DRIVE the tax is added on to the fuel we use......... Pretty damn simple to understand eh????

Would have used the correct language in that post, but got warned by the mods on too many an occaision that a 8 year old might be reading this forum, well ther you go 8 year old Manta owners, this is the Opel Manta Owners Club website isn't it...........????

Right back off me soap box now...

[mantadoc]

Actually no one needs free car tax for cars over 25. If you drive it everyday it's you daily drive so pay lol
And if it's your second car......... well you can afford to have a car lying around insured then you can afford to tax it........

In fact the green party say if a cars life is doubled from 10 years on average to 20 then your carbon foot print goes down by 40%

So get out your spreadsheets and see that if you don't have several thousand pounds of daily drive car depreciating that you can easily offset a Mantas petrol and be pounds head running it and help the environment, especially if you fit a modern engine.

opel2000, on 10 September 2010 - 05:28 PM, said:

Going back to Raod Tax....
Could not belive the other year when the talk was about "Taxing people for the distance they drive everyone seemed to miss the point that we already are TAXED BY THE DISTANCE WE DRIVE the tax is added on to the fuel we use......... Pretty damn simple to understand eh????

100% agree here......... and they were talking about taxing cars that use a lot of fuel more per mile........... erm already are as use more fuel.

Don't get me wrong not in favour of high fuel prices, but if we must be taxed per mile PLEASE add it to fuel. I have no desire to pay salaries, building costs, administration costs etc for any such new system. Therefore adding it to fuel would work out better for us.

Oh and here's the final good point.......... any such systems reosurces, buildings, staff, systems etc............... BIG CARBON FOOTPRINT so how would that save the world?????

[garymanc]

only about £4 a week,no doubt they would add the tax to something else to make up the shortfall

[Rick-Manta]

mantadoc, on 10 September 2010 - 07:43 PM, said:

Don't get me wrong not in favour of high fuel prices, but if we must be taxed per mile PLEASE add it to fuel. I have no desire to pay salaries, building costs, administration costs etc for any such new system. Therefore adding it to fuel would work out better for us.

Oh and here's the final good point.......... any such systems reosurces, buildings, staff, systems etc............... BIG CARBON FOOTPRINT so how would that save the world?????

I'm not sure about the if you can afford a second car then you can afford to tax it bit (sounds like Daily Mirror talk!) but you're quite right, I don't really believe in all this carbon marlarky, the same as many people don't share my beliefs but it still fits in with the problem of having to create otherwise unnecessary infrastructures that will cost the tax payer a fortune as well as be costing them this 'new' made up tax system. This country is in too deep a hole for things like that, we need more taxes by creating new jobs and encouraging new business to make up a lot of the shortfall. I'm personally not keen on the forthcoming increase in VAT but this is a tax on spending that only affects the end user, still much better than tax increases on things we have to pay, such as income tax and fixed price rates and duty. As I said I just hope there's a fair solution to the fuel prices which'll need to drop to counter the VAT increase.

The green party may have a point on trying to double car lifespans, but this wont do our economy much good and as for environmental, apart from waste management, what real harm that we can see is it doing? One of their many frightening policies was the introduction of a 20mph speed limit in any built up area and a 55mph national maximun speed limit. I've also heard Caroline Lucas (the only Green party MP) in interview and I think the intention was to make 'normal people' not think they weren't completely mad and came up with the idea of having mileage vouchers limiting people to how far they can travel, now I'm fairly sure whether you're a borderline commie or a raving tory like myself, in a free counrty you'd have to think the greens certifiable!

[mantadoc]

Rick-Manta, on 11 September 2010 - 11:34 AM, said:

I don't really believe in all this carbon marlarky, the same as many people don't share my beliefs but it still fits in with the problem of having to create otherwise unnecessary infrastructures that will cost the tax payer a fortune as well as be costing them this 'new' made up tax system.

Ah but here's the good bit...... It doesn't matter whether you believe in the "carbon malarky" or not.
What matters is that the people intending to tax you by any such system either a) do believe or b) merely use that argument and therefore as such cannot dismiss any argument against any such system based on it's carbon foot print out of hand. Basically they hand you the defense against implementing it as a separate system on a plate.

[Rick-Manta]

True, although most of the types that either do believe it or want to tax people using the carbon footprint theory would argue that they offset their impact by not washing, recylcing their turds or something like that

Here's something I found from one of the MG circles, sent to the Conservative party central office from one of the classic car magazines. Although it was written just before the election. I've heard that it is definately still in consideration, there are no figures relating to how much of an impact classic car tax excemption really makes, but it is predicted the figure is a drop in the ocean in relation to total road fund duty.

What is the Conservative Party's policy on Historic/Classic vehicles? Gordon Brown in his early days as a 'stealth tax' chancellor froze the rolling 25 year exempton for these vehicles from the date of 31/12/1972. Will the Conservative party reinstate this exemption to help preserve the Classic British vehicles?

I am writing on behalf of David Cameron to thank you for your email about the tax exemption for vintage vehicles.
We believe that it is of genuine importance to our country’s culture and history to preserve our classic car heritage, and we would like to acknowledge the dedication of members of historic car clubs, car owners and enthusiasts. We understand that interest in classic cars is worth £1.6 billion to the UK economy and results in the employment of around 25,000 people. As you may be aware, it was the last Conservative Government which introduced a nil Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) rate for cars over 25 years old, with a “rolling exemption” provision. It was in Gordon Brown’s 1998 Budget that the Government terminated the “roll-over” provisions without any announcement or consultation. Robert Goodwill MP, the Shadow Roads Minister is developing a Roads Green Paper in which he is looking at a broad range of issues relating Britain’s roads. I know that the road tax of historic vehicles is on his agenda, and I will make sure that he is aware of your views.
Thank you, once again, for writing.

Edited by Rick-Manta, 11 September 2010 - 01:41 PM.