'Secret' tax for family cars - surely not fair?

[Maiakins]

I couldn't believe it when I read in the Times this morning about the new road tax rules to include cars up to seven years old. This means we'll be paying £300 next year for our used 2003 Ford Galaxy and £455 the following year onwards.

See 'Secret tax adds £200 to cost of running family cars' - driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/article3842848.ece?Submitted=true

It makes me mad as if you have 3 or more young children and need 3 infant car seats, these cars are the only models that suit. This is especially true if you have twins/triplets and need to fit in a double buggy. It isn't ethically right to backdate a tax to a decision we now have no influence over. Fair enough to tax cars from 2006 onwards when the law was introduced and people were aware, but what are we supposed to do if we already have the car? Urgh!!!!!!!

I've been a Labour voter all my life and this is the last straw!

they should look at occupancy of the car. I have a 7 seater & all seats are taken. Surely this is better than all the smaller cars with one person in?

Ineed, cot. I agree.

I see plenty of folk driving round with their pfbs in humungous cars. I drove a shitty 3 door fiat punto until I had DS2 and now I have a shitty volvo.

manky - sorry about your bad back. Sorry you accidentally got pregnant. Life sucks and crap happens (not your 3rd DC obviously!) but I still don't think it's unfair that you have to pay more for the privilege of having a bigger car.
I'm not a total idiot - I know public transport is often poor, and I know not everyone can find a place to live that fits their lifestyle perfectly, but I do have a problem with people complaining that they are hard-done. If you can afford a bigger car, go for it, but be willing to pay the price. If you can't afford a bigger car, use one of the other (sometimes less-than-perfect) solutions to getting about. That's what people with no choice do, and sometimes 'crazy' people like me choose to do.

we left the city because we couldn't afford the rents there.

were literally in the hole every month.

By the way, kids round here mostly walk to school because Scotland still allocates schools according to postcodes, unlike the mad English system. Maybe people in England should be lobbying their local MPs to do away with your choices system so that your children can attend a 'local' school. Then you wouldn't have such a large fuel bill on top of your large tax bill.

That's right, folks. Only the rich should have choices. Everyone else should just suck it up and suffer.

Disabled and the mother of four young children and can't leave the house without a car big enough to carry them all? You should have thought of that before you had them. Isolation for you, m'lady.

Oh, and hefty dose of pythonesque 'when I were a lad, I didn't have any legs and had to pull myself along by my earlobes!' thrown in for good measure.

Riven, I don't think anyone including the government has figured CTC out! At least not from looking at all the problems people have with it.
I think if there was an obvious and immediate improvement in public transport most people would accept the rise albeit grudgingly. I know we would. At the moment though the money seems to disappear in to a black hole.

Scotsgirl, I understand what you are saying, but we already pay for our car through the fuel taxes. And road tax was ok as well til this came in. We budget carefully and where we can we walk everywhere. And we could afford the bigger car when we bought it second hand, but good old Gordon Brown moved the goalposts!

manky - yup, I agree about GB moving the goalposts, and agree that is unfair.

Eruvandi - I don't get it? Were you responding to me? I'm not saying only the rich should have choices. I'm saying if you are 'rich' (not sure that is accurate. I think reasonably well off might be better) then don't complain about relatively small tax hikes. Or make your choices accordingly. If you're disabled, then you'll get help with the cost of your car and get free road tax anyway (at least the disabled people I know do - not sure who gets this entitlement, so don't flame me if I'm wrong).

parkers do a great road tax guide we are thankfully not going to be too affected.. thats what you get when you drive a skoda

We have a Skoda Octavia - 1.9l diesel. Band C, CO2 rating 130g/km. We have 3 carseats in the back. It is the most fantastic car I have ever had, I love it! If you're worried about the tax on the bigger 'people carriers', consider a Skoda!

xpost jingleyjen!

I am very stupid - can anyone tell me how old my car is? It's a V reg!

we have a "superb" and it really is!

riven - totally agree that people would complain about cost of public transport even if it was a good option. Why can't people just accept that bigger families cost more; and acknowledge that, in the majority of cases, bigger families are also a choice.

Bramshott, V is Sep 1999 - Mar 2000.

The point about 'choice' though is that the government's rationale for the tax is to influence people's choice when they're buying a car ... so why tax people when they've already bought the car? In 2006, the government said no car registered before 2006 would be affected ... but suddenly, it is being backdated to 2001.

It is blatently not to deter people from buying gas-guzzling cars, but to raise extra £££ and the effect is to penalise people with larger families (along with other road users in band G).

I am very pro-public transport, for the congestion charge and (have been, not sure now) a lifelong labour supporter ... but this is just unethical to do retrospective taxes on purchases that are 5+ years!

Thanks WW!

scotsgirl, ach, ignore me, I'm appallingly pre-menstrual.

The point has been made by others that this isn't about accepting there will be extra costs to having larger families - it's that this cost is not for any useful purpose except a cynical revenue-raising exercise.

Telling people they should have factored in that the government, in a few years time, was going to stiff them royally is not the most constructive of comments.

But the snark in my comments was a little over the top. I'm surprised I've left anyone alive on here today

Well Scotsgirl, not all disabled people get help with their cars you know. Ds isn't deemed to be eligible for a mobility vehicle so we have to pay for our car ourselves. We could no longer afford to rent a house in town so we are now on the outskirts. Ds has severe ASD and needs a special harness to keep him restrained in the car, plus a booster. Not many taxi drivers would be keen on standing around while I climb into the boot of their car to attach the safety harness round the back seat (oh and they'd have to volunteer to hang on to DS to stop him running in the road while I did it). Taking Ds on a bus is sometimes necessary but a nightmare best avoided and we are rather a long walk from the railway station.
This is the first big car I've ever had. When we started our family we had a Peugeot 205 which all four of us crammed into, even managing a camping holiday. We've been forced to buy a larger car because ds's SN buggy refused to fit in the boot of the Peugeot. We even tried a roofbox but I wasn't tall enough to get the buggy into it.
There are over four years between my two children but since children up to 12 years old now have to use a booster seat (if they are short like my dd) I fail to see how having children further apart makes any difference to what size car you need.

Pixel, your circumstances do sound difficult, and I'm sorry you don't get help with your car - you have also clearly tried to make it work with a smaller car and can't.
My original comments were aimed at people who don't really have much to complain about but still feel the need to be 'hard done by', or people who choose a certain life then expect everything to be tailored to their choice, not aimed at people like you.

Anyway, I don't want to start sounding all defensive. Realise I've probably offended some people, so apologies to those people, and apologies for my rather strident emails. Tact is not proving to be my strong point today!

It's ok Scotsgirl, maybe I was being a bit stroppy . It's just that some of us would prefer not to have a big car, honest!