Friday, 4 January 2013

"Swimming in Ireland's biggest pothole" and the related issue of exorbitant road tax




We Irish pay the highest motor-based taxes in Europe, but it must be said we get a great return for our money.  Even the Germans, with ribbons of smooth, untolled Autobahns criss-crossing their country, cannot boast on-road jacuzzis for the tired motorist.

We can.  Liam Keane, of Cork, had a dip in one after he noticed a giant, water-filled hole sitting on a local road for one week, untroubled by the local authorities.  

His girlfriend, Stephanie, recorded Liam splashing about in the crater before posting the resulting video on You Tube.  Maybe co-incidentally, the council then dispatched a crew in a yellow truck to fill it in.

And back to the subject of road tax, have a look at the two tables below:



Irish motor tax rates


Band + Emission Rate
Motor Tax 2013
A0 Zero
€120
A1 1-80g
170
A2 More than 80g/km up to and incl 100
180
A3 More than 100g/km up to 110g/km
190
A4 More than 110g/km up to 120g/km
200
B1 More than 120g/km up to 130g/km
270
B2 More than 130g/km up to 140g/km
280
C More than 140g/km up to 155g/km
390
D More than 155g/km up to 170g/km
570
E More than 170g/km up to 190g/km
750
F More than 190g/km up to 225g/km
1200
G More than 225g/km
2350


UK motor tax rates

Band CO2 emission (g/km) 12 months rate
A Up to 100 £0.00
B 101-110 £20.00
C 111-120 £30.00
D 121-130 £100.00
E 131-140 £120.00
F 141-150 £135.00
G 151-165 £170.00
H 166-175 £195.00
I 176-185 £215.00
J 186-200 £250.00
K* 201-225 £270.00
L 226-255 £460.00
M Over 255 £475.00


Quite a difference, even when you go to the trouble of currency conversion.

Being Irish (or living here) is an expensive business.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's even more fun is when you look at what's done with Road Tax. By default it's used to fund the "Local Government Fund", going for 2011 I see that gross Motor tax receipts were on order of €953m however the predicted expenditure for "non-national Roads" (National Roads funded via NRA) is €397.5m. This is suppose to cover maintenance of 90,000 km's of road.

The remaining €455m was for funding the 32 "county level" local authorities in this country. Their other main source of funding of course been commercial rates (and now the household charge).

Of coure there's no reason why Ireland couldn't get by divided into only 8 local authority regions say using the EU NUTS 3 statistical regions as template. This would reduce the amount of duplication but I doubt the public service unions or the political class would ever allow that.

If you ignore Motor Tax the following is the charges on motorists that went to Central Government between 2002 and 2007 (excise/vat on fuel + VRT/Vat on car purchases) based on an answer that Cowan gave in Dáil in Nov 2007.

2002: €3 billion
2003: €3.2 billion
2004: €3.6 billion
2005: €4 billion
2006: €4.4 billion
2007: €4.8 billion (estimate)

-Paul

The Gombeen Man said...

Thanks for those stats, Paul, and Cowen's figures.

The elimination of the duplication you speak of is just one area where the seemingly addictive wasting of pubic money could be kerbed. Sorry, curbed.

The motorist is a catch-all cash cow, it seems.

DC3 said...

All you need to know about "motor" tax in this JOKE of a country is the AO Band; €120 for NO emissions. Easy Target. It must be because no one talks about it, that it's considered not to exist in real time. Africa.

GM with a TAX system that changes quicker than the weather, or the depth of the average public Jacuzzi, no wonder the country is an ongoing disaster.

This is the continuous madness the "consumer" will be paying for, AGAIN...Eh, is there going to be a STANDING CHARGE (EG; ESB and Bord Gais monthly hefty levies!)just for the pleasure of having these Water Meters? Oh I think so...

The Gombeen Man said...

It wouldn't surprise me in the least, DC3.

Anonymous said...

Lets cut to the chase here on road tax. Road tax is just another tax to pay for all the flipping waste here in Ireland. If a man buys a car for 40k then there is probably 10k tax on the car. He then pays 400 road tax over ten years thats 4k. He puts 3000 euros of petrol in the car a year so thats 30k over the 10 years. There is at least 50% tax on that. You are now at 30k in tax over the ten years lifetime of the car. This does not include tolls or insurance levies. So the car nearly costs the guy twice as much over the ten years. The only value he gets is when he sells it on or trades it in . If he is lucky he will get 10k back. Generally the car will be passed on to some other poor gob%hite who will be milked for everything too. People need to realise that you need to get rid of your second cars until your mortgage is cleared. Its a money pit in expense.