Car Tax?!

True - but I think there's often a sense of something being a luxury choice that they made because they're awash with money, when often it's just the prices of quite average things going up and up.

Like with the 'mansion tax' - the amounts they usually settle on would indeed buy you a luxury mansion where I live in the Midlands; but for people in London and a lot of the South-East, that's just what family houses cost.

It seems doubly unfair when people have no choice but to hugely stretch themselves and pay (or, more likely, borrow) a fortune for something quite average... and then for them to be told that, because they managed to pay that very high price (with massive monthly mortgage repayments for decades), that must mean that they're very rich, and so they should be paying a load more in tax!

The criteria is over £40k, not defined in law whether "Luxury" or not.

Just like lots of people say VAT is only on "luxury" items which isn't true either.

Of course, due to fiscal drag, more and more cars are being caught in the £40k trap as it's not rising annually, just like tax allowances/thresholds aren't rising annually.

Why are people advising the OP to see if she qualifies for a discount?

If she can afford the car (and fair play for that) then trying to blag some of the tax cost back is a bit of a piss-take

It clearly is the correct amount, it was just that she didn’t look it up beforehand

I know that now. Hadnt bought a new car for 11 years tbf

I’ll stick to my faithful old VW as long as I can as it’s £35 a year - I could get 50% off due to PIP mobility but haven’t bothered as it’s so low

And I was pissed off when my diesel Insignia went from zero to £20.

Still less than our very old volvo estate.

We wouldn't ever be in the market for a brand new car (or even one under 5 years old, so problem solved for us!); but I don't think £40K is a huge amount for a normal brand new car either. Not with all of the tech and gadgets that are standard now.

We fell foul of this too! Bought a second hand (but less than five years old) car for less than £40k and had no idea that the tax thing had changed. We’re still on the £640 rate for another two years annoyingly.

That's the standard car tax cost now.

yep just bought a two year old car. tax gone from £20 a year to £200.

I feel your pain. My trusty old car finally did the dirty on me and went to car heaven. As I'm a community midwife, I need a reliable car. So I looked to purchase something relatively new. I was deep in to my car shopping experience when I discovered the so called luxury car tax.
What I find so sneaky about it is that when buying a second hand car (as I was) there is no definitive way to know if your car was over 40k new. I spent considerable time researching for a car that met my requirements (it's the family car, 3 kids, 2 in high back boosters so need space in the rear). I settled on a Hyundai Tuscon. I didn't mind if I got a petrol or hybrid. But it turns out that the just under one year old hybrid Tuscon I was looking at purchasing for 27k would have been over the 40k new. Just over. By a few hundred. But if I got the petrol model at 26k, it was a few hundred under the 40k - if it had no extras from new. So guess what I got? Make that make sense when they want us to switch to electric!! And since when did a regular family car reach the luxury car tax level?!!!
I very nearly made the same mistake as you OP, so sympathies. They really need to make it clear on second hand cars now what the actual list price was so you can clearly see if the tax will be levied. It took a lot of research for me to establish it for the car I bought. And I'd expect a lot of people will find the same when they buy 3/4/5 year old cars for 10-20k not expecting to be anywhere near paying luxury car tax for a bog standard family car!

£40k for a new car is hardly ridiculous these days.

That is of course the historic list price. My 4 years old car cost me a lot less than that but I've still had to pay higher duty. Again for a hybrid. But my lovely 20 year old car which we have lovingly kept on the road has road tax of £450.

I feel your pain. I had to replace a car this year because it was wasn't economical to repair. The tax on the new (secondhand) vehicle was almost 6 times as expensive as the tax on my previous vehicle.

Absolutely ridiculous, that's a huge increase. It's only a 1l engine as well and I changed from a diesel to a petrol

It's not actually called a "luxury" tax; it's the Expensive Car Supplement or something similar and yes, £40k is expensive. I've just bought a 2 year old 5 door automatic Mini with all the bells and whistles and the original price was about £30k.

@loopygremlinDo you happen to have a disability? If you’re entitled to PIP, depending on the level you receive, you could get either 50% off your car tax or 100% off if you get the enhanced mobility rate of PIP

I've just got mine, its £200 for the whole year on a Mazda 2 hybrid.

Anything over £40k has a higher VED. luxury tax is just a colloquialism, just as "road tax" is.

Well that is what happens if you don’t check. On the plus £640 is nothing compared to the ridiculous price for the car

It’s £190 for all “cheap” cars, including our fully electric car. You have an expensive car so the car tax is higher.