April fools

April 1 sees yet another round of road tax changes to cars. Let’s recap the confusion. There will remain the dual level of tax based on cubic capacity (1550cc is the marker), which came out in 2001 for pre-y-reg cars.

This was followed by the first emissions-based regime for cars from 2001 onwards. This was staggered into nine steps and maxed out for cars emitting 225g/km and more. Finally, from March 23 2006 onwards, there were another two steps added to the aforementioned emissions-based tax regime with 255g/km being the new ceiling. Buy a big, petrol 2006 car at your peril!

Don’t ask me for the specific cost of each tax bracket as it seemingly changes by the hour. You’ll need to check online at the time you’re thinking of buying to be reasonably confident of the cost.

Now all of this is to be scrapped for cars registered from April 1 2017. There will 13 staged emission steps, with the new top band being for cars emitting 256g/km upwards. These 13 steps will be used to determine an initial showroom/first year road tax that ranges from £0 (no emissions) up to an eyewatering £2000 (256g/km or more). From the second year onwards, all cars that emit CO2 will pay an across-the-board £140 per year. Except if the list price for the car was more than £40,000; if that’s the case, you’ll need to add £310 per year on top of the road tax for the next five years.

Are you following and understanding this? Good, because its going to affect resale values of used and pre-reg cars for some time.

And don’t ask me if ‘list price £40,000’ encompasses factory-fit options pushing the price over £39,999, nor what happens if showroom haggling reduced the price to below £40k. I’m not confident enough to give you an answer to these potential loopholes. Except to point out that loopholes invariably close.

That explains why, during March, the likes of Jeep were offering £10,000+ incentives on their Grand Cherokee range. The cost of pre-registering them and their ilk in the future is going to be prohibitive.

‘The cost of each tax bracket seems to change by the hour’