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THE MINISTER FOR the Environment has confirmed that motor tax rates will be increased in next week’s Budget.
Phil Hogan acknowledged that rates will rise, and said there will also be changes to the bands of tax for different vehicles.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics, he said: “There are going to be adjustments in the bands and there are going to be adjustments in the rates. The Minister for Finance has to use some of those resources for adjustments in the budget.”
The AA’s Conor Faughnan told TheJournal.ie yesterday that such increases would “cost motorists a tremendous amount of money”, adding that they would “take money out of people’s pockets and away from other sectors of the economy as they will not be able to spend”.
However, Minister Hogan reiterated the Government’s commitment not to raise income tax, and said the focus on indirect taxes would give people some choices in their spending. “That’s the decision the Government has made to keep the incentive to work there,” he said.
He insisted that the Government was “mindful of the sacrifices people are making”, and said it was “trying to limit the effect of the measures on the most vulnerable”.
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Yea limiting us to using their shit public transport system or paying a fortune in car tax. That seems totally fair!
Can I get a tax discount If you don’t have access to decent public transport?
Have to say, the government is doing a tremendous job in halting any kind of economic recovery.
Should we just bend over now ?
We are already bending over for the last few years.:-)
Yes Kevin we have!
Collect more tax to pay big pensions. Nothing to do with roads.
And on top of this, govt are heavily subsidising toll road operators. Toll charges going up too.
Tell a haulier that motor tax isn’t a tax on his/her income.
The older the car the more ya pay basically in road tax. This country is sinking faster and faster every day. How can we keep paying more and more tax and watch oil,petrol,diesel rocket whilst paying for tyres,services etc. These people are not in the real world,eventually we are just going to have to say stop. Even if that means getting on the streets to protest.
Pity we couldn’t the hole country to refuse to pay car tax!!!!!!
So if you are short on money you can’t afford a newer car hence you pay more tax. So let me get this right, because you are rich you pay less.
Wonderful logic.
What about people who dont have a choice like driving a smaller car or using public transport. There are families with four or more kids living in the countryside who dont have a choice but to drive a 7-seater and just because of engine size they are being penalized. Roadtax in Ireland is already one of the highest in world and our roads are some of the worst….
“some choices in spending” yeah right I live in the middle of nowhere. I’ve got two choices – drive or walk 20 miles to work
I think I hate this country now! May I wish all politicians a very happy warm well fed, want for nothing Christmas !
No point trying to sugarcoat it Phil, you are not fooling anyone
Can you imagine telling a member of the Garda
Can you imagine telling a Garda that you didn’t pay your tax cos Minister Hogan gave us “a choice” in our spending!
So if anyone ever thought that the (soon to be old) discount for ‘green’ cars’ road tax was a incentive to go green, you missed the point… it was yet another delayed sucker from a broken party system
Why doesn’t this shower just call around and chop my legs off. If i cant afford to run my car i can’t get to and from work. So my next step is to join the dole que and bleed the country dry. Good work FF lite
Ah so the new government continue the practice of kicking the can down the road and not tackling the actual problem, the bad value for tax payers money the public service represents.
We need leadership who will think outside the box when trying to solve the funding problems of this state rather than go after the “old reliables”. The most logical solution is the simplest, tax based on usage. Abolish Road tax and tolls and tax fuel higher. Therefore people will pay for the usage and their choice of car engine size. It also means that the 46 Motor Tax offices can be closed saving in and around €60 million per annum.
Makes more sense than pouring money into a Public Service that was designed for Victorian times.
Paul, tut tut, can’t have such thinking in Ireland, young fellow my lad! Next you’ll be telling me that bread and dripping isn’t good enough for you
;-)
Lol very good Thomas
From The Sunday Times (England): http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/News/Irish_News/article831599.ece
Motorists are facing car-tax increases of up to 63%, and a 4c rise in the price of a litre of petrol, in tough new revenue-raising measures to be announced in next week’s budget.
Motor tax will rise generally by 5%, but greener vehicles will face a steeper increase as part of a “rebalancing” of the system of road taxes introduced in 2008.
The owners of cars with the lowest fuel emissions, Band A, will see their road tax rise from €104 to €170 a year.
Those in band B face an increase from €156 to €220. Band C car tax is to increase from €302 to €350 a year.
Band A includes most hatchbacks and smaller diesel saloons, while Band B cars include many of the larger family saloons and some luxury models.
The BMW 5-series diesel, the Volkswagen Passat diesel and the 2-litre Skoda Octavia and Superb models, for example, are currently in Band B, with owners paying tax of €156 on their vehicles.
Following recent steep rises in the price of diesel, which is now the same price as petrol on most forecourts, the 2% Vat increase to be introduced in the budget will add 2.5 cents to a litre of petrol or diesel, according to the Automobile Association (AA).
Michael Noonan, the finance minister, and Phil Hogan, the environment minister, are discussing plans for an increase of between €5 and €10 per tonne in carbon taxes, according to government sources.
This will add between 1.5c and 3c to the price of petrol, suggesting motorists are facing an overall price increase of between 4c and 5.5c.
The motor tax will raise about €50m while the carbon tax increase will bring in between €54m and €108m.
Hogan faces being accused by political rivals of further reducing the imprint of the Green party on government policy, but the AA said some rebalancing of the motor-tax rates was probably inevitable after a dramatic switch to cleaner vehicles.
Conor Faughnan, the AA’s director of policy, said: “This is nasty but not unexpected and we will be getting a lot of angry emails and comments from motorists when this comes on top of the fuel increases next year.
This really makes my blood boil. I am now working only 3 days a week due to downturn in business. I work 25 miles away with no public transport available. My 01 Skoda cost me 1000 euro this year to have NCTd. It costs me approx 75 euro a week for petrol and 125 euro every 3 months for tax (not to mention insurance). With all the pay cuts and additional taxes, etc. It’s getting to the stage where I won’t be able to afford to go to work – then I’ll just be another one on the social benefit. These guys are still living in their ivory towers and do not seem to understand that it is middle class working people who are once again held to account for the governments faults. I imagine they never get petrol or pay their road tax or tolls themselves – I’m sure they have someone else to do all that for them. I say this because I can’t understand how they could contemplate such additional charges to working class people if they had any idea how many would be pushed out of work because of it. Shameful!!!
Basically, Fine Gael (Fianna Fail’s twin brother!) and Labour (so much for representing and helping the average worker – what a joke!) policy is not…
…If moves, tax it, levy it, put a charge on it.
It it don’t move, A’ hell! …STILL tax it, levy it, put a charge on it!
All that promotion of green cars. What a joke. I still have my clunker of a car. No interest in buying anything anymore. The household tax is another spoof. 100 euro today a grand over a few years. All that will be left in this country will be sheep and old people. They really sending message to piss off out of here. Half my family are gone already.
There is the problem (that China is also facing for it own reasons) that eventually there will be not enough young people in the country and too many older people. This also will create a further strain on the economy in a number of ways if not by sustaining state pensions alone.
Long story short – in doing some stupid things today and forcing many of the youth away ever more – they are adding and creating further problems down the road also!
Well done lads.
(Well, not really!)
House Property tax, Car Tax, Water charges, Septic Tank Tax, Vat increases, Fuel rises, where does it stop ! I travel to Dublin 5 days a week for work, 160 Miles round trip every day, approx €150.00 a week in fuel alone!
Said it when people wanted FG + Labour in “be careful what you wish for” all political parties are the same in this country, look after themselves and screw everyone else!!
I changed my car for one of the lower emmission type …. I wonder now why I bothered! May have to sell it .
There is many saying the same – and a few I know, are very serious.
CORRECTION:
Basically, Fine Gael (Fianna Fail’s twin brother!) and Labour (so much for representing and helping the average worker – what a joke!) policy is NOW…
…If moves, tax it, levy it, put a charge on it.
It it don’t move, A’ hell! …STILL tax it, levy it, put a charge on it!
There needs to be a discount if you pay motor tax on-line. Close the tax offices, put it onto cost of fuel and save on costs there before asking me to pay more. Some lateral thinking by government would be appreciated.
The irony is that with the good ship eurozone gently drifting towards the iceberg while messrs Sarkozy and Merkel waltz to “My Heart Will Go On” all of these measures are a complete waste of time.
Ps. My deepest apologies to those of you now plagued by the image mentioned above.
The fighting Irish? More like the frightened Irish! Designing a nation’s destiny for the common good demands a lot more than moaning about it… and all the while a suited minority are designing/feathering their individual destinies WAKE UP clowns!
why cant they be like australia and do away with the road tax, put it on the petrol and diesel, you’ll save people working in the motor tax offices, in shannon, more guards on the roads, as they wont be going to court for tax avoidance, i reckon they’d save more by doing that then increasing it, and bring back the scrappage deal on any car, van, jeep etc of any year, more tax coming in there too
A suggestion for the Minister. Please get all the Civil Servants and TD’s to pay the standard daily rate for parking their cars in Dublin. When you have done this , get back to us. Thank you.
Ministers some words of advice stick your jobs, stick your bonuses, your all expenses paid freebies, your croke park agreement, your two houses in fact stick the whole lot I’m outta here
What next a tax for hanging out your flower baskets in the summer were will it end,there is only so much you can get out of a wage packet every week nobody will have any money left to spend in he shops
Not only I am going to have money taken possibly for child support, I may end up with higher motor tax, higher oil bills, increase in petrol. What on earth are supposed to live on? I work full time, 2 boys in creche and would be better giving up work. I could then claim the social, medical card and money towards my heating! Well hold
On there I would have to be single parent without a job to do that wouldn’t I, as my sarcasm shines through
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