Unfortunately, the simple enough question of how much you can expect to pay for car tax isn’t as straightforward as it might appear. Over the years the system has changed several times, and as the current system has a whole range of bands, exemptions and other variables, it’s hardly surprising that so many people have to go online for a car tax price check to work out exactly what they’ll be paying.
Back in the 90s, things were so much simpler. Older drivers will remember that there were only two tax bands; cars with an engine of 1100cc or under paid one rate, and cars with engines over that size paid more. During the 1990s however, concern about greenhouse gases and climate change started to become mainstream, and the government switched to a system of basing the road tax on the emissions levels of the car, irrespective of engine size. To add to the confusion, it was decided that cars which were first registered before 2001 when the new calculation method came in would remain on the old system, paying depending on engine size. With two parallel systems and different rules for HGVs, the UK’s car tax system is more complicated than ever.
Although there’s no denying that the UK’s system of road tax is complicated, the good news is that it’s not your responsibility as a driver to wade through all of the data and rules and work out which band your vehicle falls into. When a car is first allocated a registration number, this information is all loaded into the DVLA database by the manufacturer. So when you go online for a car tax price check, the website pulls all of the information about that registration number from the DVLA database, and tells you exactly how much you are supposed to pay. All you need to do ins enter the registration number, and the site will automatically calculate how much car tax is due.
This is also helpful to remember when you’re crunching the numbers and trying to decide whether to buy that new car or not. You can easily find out how much tax you will be liable for, in the same way as looking at various insurance groups can help identify the most cost effective model for your needs.
There are a few groups of vehicles which don’t pay any car tax at all. If your car falls into one of these categories, you will have to contact the DVLA and let them know that it is exempt, and tell them why. They may ask for more evidence of your entitlement to exemption but this is not always needed. The main groups of vehicles which do not pay any road tax are:
There are a few options for paying your car tax. Most drivers pay annually or twice a year, but there is also the option to pay monthly by direct debit. But what happens if you’ve bought six months or a year worth of car tax and then you decide to sell the car? Car tax does not transfer with the car, and the new owner will have to buy their own tax before driving. The DVLA will process a refund of any full months of road tax which you have paid upfront and not used and send it back to you in the post.
This however also means that when you buy a new car you can’t drive it on the tax which is left over from the previous owner. If you are buying a brand new car from a dealer, or getting a second-hand bargain from a friend, you will have to go online and organise tax before driving it home, as well as making sure you have the correct insurance, and that the car is covered by a MOT certificate. If stopped by the police, the fact that you’ve only just bought the car is nor going to get you out of a fine, or points on your licence. It’s so easy to buy your car tax online, and you can do it at any time of the day or night.
For people living in or near large cities such as London and Glasgow, the introduction of ultra-low emissions zones, or ULEZ, might also affect their decisions on which cars to buy. ULEZ works in a similar way to road tax in that the most polluting cars are either banned from, or have to make a daily payment to enter the zone. The idea is to reduce traffic and air pollution in these central zones. If you regularly commute into a city which already has a ULEZ or is thinking of introducing one, then opting for an electric car, or a modern petrol car which comes up to European emissions standards could save considerable sums over the course of the year. Although it’s probably not the only consideration when choosing a new car, the increasing costs for driving older diesel vehicles should be taken into account.