A study by vehicle data expert CAP has revealed that the cost of taxing some seven-year-old cars is now around a third of their total value.
CAP said that it believes that the problem stemmed from changes to Vehicle Exercise Duty (VED) bands, which were introduced in 2006 to penalise higher CO2 vehicles.
This means that cars registered since March 23 2006, with emissions between 226 and 255g/km now cost £475 to tax.
A 2006 Renault Laguna 3.0 Initiale Auto with 237g/km now costs £475 to tax - almost 35 per cent of its value - while a 2006 Citroen C5 3.0 Exclusive Auto also costs £475 to tax, which is more than 33 per cent of its value.
According to CAP, the danger is that such cars would quickly become worthless, despite producing relatively low emissions, because older, less economical vehicles tend to be driven less.
CAP has called on the Government to lower VED rates for cars that fall into the brackets L and M after a certain age in order to prevent a waste of vehicles that do relatively little harm to the environment.
A spokesman for CAP said that scrapping serviceable cars for the sake of a tax disc "makes a mockery" of environmental taxes, because owners already tend to limit their mileage because the cars are relatively uneconomical.
He said: “We are now in the crazy situation where perfectly good cars have become uneconomical to own because the cost of taxing them could soon approach half their car’s value.
“This means more and more cars will become unsalable and will have to be scrapped long before the end of their useful life.”
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The system is simply not fair. I have a 60hp Fiesta that costs me £200 per year or £220 paying in two instalments. It's becoming unaffordable for me. I find it confusing that a Prius can cause lots of damage to the environment and then emit through the tailpipe still yet it qualifies for road tax exemption.
I must be becoming paranoid. A doom and gloom feature in AE and, surprise surprise, the vehicle shown is not a German one! Subliminal propaganda? Surely not.
AE with a hidden agenda and blatant bias?
Surely not!
Just tax by horsepower!
The trouble with road tax in general is that it doesn't take into account how you drive and how much you drive.
If only there was a way to tax bearing into mind how you drive, how much you drive, how economical the is vehicle is. Oh wait a minute we already have that, its called fuel tax!
I own a powerful trackday car that I have averaged less than 1000 miles per year in and also a 1.2 75bhp litre Renault Clio that I do over 12,000 miles per year in. To me it seems wrong that I pay much much less tax for the Clio than the trackday car despite the fact that the Clio is clearly emitting much more pollution per year.
I say to increase fuel tax a little and scrap road tax altogether.
I had a 2005 C5 with the 3.0 V6, believe me, the cost of tax was the least of my worries, although mine was on the old system. Fuel economy of less than 20 mpg and almost weekly repair bills forced me to shift it on.
Not that there were many of these kind of cars registered new, let alone still on the road now.
Indeed. Who would have thought it?
Yes, just yes. Been saying this for years!
That's what green means, green means the government putting their hands in peoples pockets for money and the environment and then spending the money on something completely unrelated like the pavement, schools and tax rebates for the very well off. We are lucky that some British MP'S stood up to the extortion because they were going to backdate the tax changes for all cars after march 2001...!!!!
My heart goes out to anyone who bought a 3.0 C5...seriously, I hope you bought it 2nd hand.
That's made me feel better about owning my 231 bhp 2001 3.0 E39, it costs about the same to tax as your fiesta. My next car is going to be a merc 500 or 560 sec/sel I think or a nice 7 litre Jensen Interceptor.
Don't blame you mate. It's a crazy system.
:) Yes, at a stupidly good price. For a while it was fun - despite the many niggles and the fuel bill. I sold it for 85% of what I paid for it 12 mths later to an enthusiast. Don't regret it at all.
Equally ridiculous is how diesels due to their low CO2 output are in low tax brackets yet they pollute with carcinogenic particulates far more than petrol cars. Clearly our direct health is not as important as global warming.
That was the whole plan it's all a big scam to get cars off the the road quicker so there's a shortage of used cars so people keep buying new cars, co2 emissions scam by the car makers/government, co2 figures are made up nonsence & so mpg figures to make people think they are buying cleaner & more economical cars than they really are.
Don't worry ben a black box near you soon by 2020 nearly all cars will have blackboxes/trackers in them courtesy of those lovely insurance companys who want to know exactly how much mileage we're doing each day & how senseable or irrattic we're driving & charge us accordingly lovely is'nt it ? Big brther watching you everywhere you go it's not invation of privacy is it you think ?
Actually it's not as important but it's all the more reason not to be an idiot and disable the DPF.
cars over ten years old should be exempt from road tax, this would encourage people to keep cars longer
Actually people should be encouraged to scrap old cars on the grounds of the vastly improved safety ratings of modern vehicles. People now walk away from smashes that would have killed them ten years ago. Before the inevitable chorus of "I don't have accidents" I would observe, merely, that we have no control over the incompetence of others.
UK road tax system is a total joke.
Do 50,000 miles a year in Prius and clog-up cause congestion, wear our roads out you get a free ride you contribute nothing.
Drive an old worthless banger avoid paying road tax without buying road tax disc, like one lady did for 26 years, all she got was a £150 fine and her car crushed. Who says crime does not pay?
Some poor ole pensioner that owns a low powered Fiesta like car similar to CarGeek who does about 5 miles a week with the odd pop into the local Post Office to collect his well earned pension, or a food shop gets stung for £220 Road Tax. Has belched out next to nothing in the way of pollution, not worn the roads out or caused any congestion.
Clowns in Westmister running the country have not got a Scooby Doo, how hard is it to just add road tax to the cost of fuel at the pump, so those tax dodging thieves that don't pay road tax can't avoid paying it as they we be paying it when they fill-up or walk. Toyota Prius owner that drives 50,000 miles a year wont get away scott free for belching out 50,000 miles worth of car pollutants, excessive road wear of our roads and clogging up our roads. Poor old pensioners or classic car owners that use cars less do next to no miles pay the least for not clogging up the roads.
Maybe needs to be some concessions for rural low paid worker, and Foreign lorry drivers need to be made to have to fill-up at point of exiting the UK so making the import of those ghastly tasting French Golden delicious apples more expensive.
UK Government wants to waste hundreds of billions of £s we dont have on setting up a two tier rich/poor empty fast roads for the rich few/congested slow roads for the poor, or tolls roads and pay as you go £1.36 a mile on busy roads driving either road tax or satellite road pricing per mile.
Why not just add the road tax to price of petrol free, keep it simple cheap the cost, don't want to pay for millions of gantries with big brother cameras, huge administration costs, courts cost chasing those fail to pay, expensive satellite tracking systems fitted to my car, free up police time in pulling over chasing road tax dodgers, setting up road block tax dodger traps, free up expensive court cases involved with road tax dodging, end the expounding wasteful crushing of tax dodgers car, free up all the expensive SORN administration long queues in the post office paper mountain destroying trees, let the police spend their time catching real criminals, as the road tax is all paid for sitting in the fuel tank.
Too many people in this world, lets make more!