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MOST VEHICLES WILL see a 7.5 per cent increase in motor tax after today’s rate hikes announced in Budget 2012.
Environment Minister Phil Hogan said this evening that the Government would “continue to incentivise people to drive low emission cars that makes less impact on our environment”. However, even those cars with the bottom CO2 emissions rates will be hit with a tax increase.
Hogan said:
The restructuring of motor tax in July 2008 to base it on CO2 emissions for all cars first registered from that date has brought a welcome shift to lower emitting cars.It has also reduced the total amount being collected, and this trend will continue as a larger proportion of car owners pay motor tax based on CO2 emissions. In current financial circumstances, we must prevent the erosion of an important part of the tax base.
For new cars, registered on or after 1 July 2008, the motor tax is based on CO2 emissions – even the lowest three of these have increased:
For cars registered before 1 July 2008:
For the rest of the rates above this CC and for commercial vehicles see the full document here.
Fuel hikes
Motorists will also be hit by the increase on petrol and diesel – they will increase by 1.4c and 1.6c respectively – which take effect from midnight tonight. The AA said this evening that prices for both will effectively rise by another 2.44 per cent from 1 January next because of the increase in VAT to 23 per cent.
Conor Faughnan of the AA said that the impact of the increases would hit rural Ireland hardest where “mileages are higher and alternatives fewer”. He argued that the increases were actually a “tactical mistake” and that petrol and diesel is now more expensive in the Republic than in Northern Ireland whereas the converse used to be true. “Our exchequer was boosted with cross-border sales… in all, this fuel increase could wind up costing the government money”.
Retail Ireland went further this evening, claiming that the increase in carbon tax would drive those living in border counties to travel north of the border to fill up their fuel tanks. Frank Gleeson, chairman of Retail Ireland, said:
In light of the deteriorating economic situation in Britain, George Osborne announced last Tuesday that he was cancelling the planned 3p fuel duty increase due in January, while the UK’s 5p rise planned for August 2012 has been reduced to a 3p per litre increase.
The group, which is affiliated to IBEC, estimates a fall of up 30 per cent in trade in towns just south of the border.
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Why dont they include tax in your petrol/diesel so u pay for it the amount you drive wouldnt that make more sense and have a cap so if you do drive alot it can not be extreamly high but it can be very low if you just use you car for a shop call..
Also this would cut out the cost of Car Disc Admin and save loads with car tax evaders.. Someone tell me why this is a bad Idea….
They already do Vincent. Plus carbon taxes too. Why apply just one tax on something like fuel when you can apply three or more?
Certainly feel like a mug paying my tax every 3 months with the amount of people I know who brazenly drive around for up to six months at a time with no tax and then call into their local Garda station to get a form declaring the car was off the road.
And the gardai don’t seem to give a toss either. One girl I know brazenly walked into a garda station after 7 months with no tax and said she was in South America. The form was just stamped without question by the garda behind the desk.
And of course we have the likes of this hapless journalist Marie Crowe crying fowl when her car is seized by gardai for having no tax. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gardai-will-never-be-respected-if-they-keep-alienating-the-public-2098881.html
What a lawless kip this country is.
So So True Sean….. So my tax would work better…. catch out all the scum…. :)
because..simply..the tax take from cross border fuel purchasers would disappear as it is currently cheaper in border areas of ROI than in.NI
They do. 70% of the cost of petrol already goes directly to the government.
dont agree…. i pay €100 and i drive 10K every 3 months and your telling me its fair… dont think so…
The car I drive now has LESS emissions than the old one I got rid of.. yet the tax is €40 HIGHER than the tax I would have paid had I kept the old one! Makes no sense that the low emission cars are now more expensive to tax than some of the similar older models! Let’s not even ask where this increase in tax revenue and increased carbon tax is actually going. It’s hardly going towards reducing our GHG emissions. Filling the hole in our banking system more like. Makes no sense.
You bought one with a bigger engine?
The Guards will be busy next year stamping off the road tax declarations.
:-(( my tax is now almost €1400 per year….live in an area with the countries worst roads….not a happy bunny tonight !!
must be some yoke your driving
A jeep….not a fancy new one…pre 2008…it’s like a work horse & is about as nippy as a tractor….need it as I live in a rural area & for work, makes me smile when I see 4x4s in Dublin city on school runs !! One good thing about recession is that there will be less unnecessary jeeps on the road !
your tax is about as much as I pay for a car. the NCT only give one year at 10 years old, another racket. was gas to see them in the snow last year, most of them lost them on the turns. still they need them for taking the little darlings to school, except the schools all shut down.
Me too! Seriously wouldn’t be driving a jeep if I didn’t need one, can barely afford to keep it on the road as it is, now road tax and diesel gone up again, where is this going to stop?
in the same position, my tax is gone above €1000 now and have corks crappiest roads, two tyres in the last 3 months, and both unrepairable, car taxed but yet council dont cover pot holes, so why pay it, well I wont be able to afford to now, sell my motor now, time for a push bike
2005 1.9 diesel car, i can’t afford to upgrade to a 2008 car. So ive to pay an extra 50 quid to bring this tax up to 660 for the year!All the time the wealthier people are paying 156 for an an Audi A4 or a BMW 320, which will go up to 225. What kind of planet is Phil Hogan on, or is it that they have such a lovely salary that it is easy for himself and his cronies to upgrade to a low emissions vehicle?!I think an earlier comment suggested that people will go to lengths to avoid some of these taxes. I don’t they will have much choice until there is some fairness.
50 extra a year in tax is a hell of a lot less than the depreciation you’d suffer if you were to change to a 2008 car.
Ministers have state cars and TD’s get expenses for their cars+fuel so they have no idea of the true cost do they?
FG really have failed to factor in the lengths that people will go to to avoid these hikes. Much of this budget seems very simple minded and short sighted, to be honest. I dread to think what will become of this country by the 4th austere budget. How far can people be stretched before they say enough is enough and take steps to avoid paying what FG expects them to pay?
When the new tax system was brought in, it failed to factor in how quick low emission vehicles would be available. €104 was set too low, it could have been double this and still have been very reasonable. What’s €100 to someone having just spent €25k on a new car?
Quite true. It’s a good system in theory.. but it also punishes the people driving older cars.. ie many of whom can’t afford to upgrade.
We need guards freed up to work on real crime!!! Yet another thing that will result in inefficiencies…not the guards fault though!!! They ask public servants to be more efficient and then implement measures that creat inefficiencies…the mind boggles!!!!
Peoples whose cars are seized should have to pay an extortionate fee to justify the guards time spent on administration when seizing the car, paperwork, storage costs, retrieval, etc along with a penalty and of course back tax. If they refuse to pay the car should be sold if worth a substantial monetary or otherwise be scrapped.
Anywhere you look in the world police forces seem to be more and more a revenue generating organization at the expense of preventing / detecting crime
been trying to sell my car privately for a few months, no interest. Praying I can sell it now, but I won’t get my hopes up :(
Ye all seem to miss the point they wanted us to miss……how many cars on the road in the usa/russia/china go through a similar scheme/test/nct answer about 1/5 depending on which area of a particular country you live in bearing in mind that all of the cars in ireland would probably fit into one scrap yard in the usa. Plus most of them are 3.0 ltr engines and refuel for about $3 a gallon. And we all know how bad the roads are in those countries. But you know what? We signed up to that european agreement and we will have our own little bit of good sky/air/ozone…..gimme a break please we have being bushwacked and are blinded buy the stars in the flag!
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