WTF is going on with road tax!!!

RobertZ4M

RobertZ4M

Member
I’ve just renewed my road tax on the M coupe. I just have it as a weekend toy. So I was shocked to see that it’s now £760 a year to tax!!!!

Please tell me someone’s found a clever way around this???
 
Sorn it for the months you dont use it. Pointless paying for it to sit if you dont use it year round.

I pay monthly for mine instead, think its £66 so a tank of fuel and generally sorn it when the weather gets bad and get it back out in March.

Really annoying mine is an 06, registered mid April, 2 weeks after the tax increase.
 
It can't be that much of a shock, as it's been going up steadily (average of 5.5% YoY) for almost 20 years!

VED is still less than the tax on the fuel I put in it, or the annual maintenance, or the cost of tyres, or the cost of track days...etc. But if you want it available all year round, then the easiest way to hid the cost is to pay slightly more and pay by monthly DD.

Assuming you're taxing it annually, according to my records it was:
  • £215 in 2006/07
  • £300 in 2007/08 (39.5% increase YoY)
  • £400 in £2008/09 (33.3% increase YoY)
  • £405 in 2009/10 (1.3%)
  • £435 in 2010/11 (7.4%)
  • £460 in 2011/12 (5.7%)
  • £475 in 2012/13 (3.3%)
  • £490 in 2013/14 (3.2%)
  • £500 in 2014/15 (2.0%)
  • £505 in 2015/16 (1.0%)
  • £515 in 2016/17 (2.0%)
  • £535 in 2017/18 (3.9%)
  • £555 in 2018/19 (3.7%)
  • £570 in 2019/20 (3.7%)
  • £580 in 2020/21 (2.7%)
  • £600 in 2021/22 (1.8%)
  • £630 in 2022/23 (3.4%)
  • £695 in 2023/24 (5.0%)
  • £735 in 2024/25 (10.3%)
  • £760 in 2025/26 (3.4%)
VED Rate Progression.jpg
 
Eventually the big polluters of 2006-8 will all be off the road, then it'll stop.

My pro move - keep my fun cars older than 2005 for a few more years, then jump to something made in 2017. Then you can have whatever 6 litre twin turbo behemoth you like and it'll only be £190 a year to tax, same as everything else.

Oh and tax monthly by direct debit, out of an account that already pays other bills. That way, you won't notice and I'll just be another household expense.
 
My X5M however was £195 in tax, so I don’t sorn it anymore. Used to be huge, but the inconsistent tax regime means that it is very cheap to tax now
 
However, looking at your mot mileage, the cost per mile is still high 😁
 
pvr said:
However, looking at your mot mileage, the cost per mile is still high 😁
Click to expand...
According to my calcs (based on a total of £10,360 of VED and 163,000 miles) my VED works out at 6.4p/mile.

I think fuel works out at c.21.8p/mile (163,000 miles at 27.3mpg and average of £1.36/L for Super).

2025-10-01_15-48-30.jpg
 
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The only way to make it sensible if you have a few cars is to SORN on/ SORN off all the time and make sure you use the cars often but not over a join of months. My road tax bill is actually quite small because I juggle them. But if you do it this way always buy 12 months and reclaim, but again when necessary, reclaim, repeat
 
Daylight robbery isn’t it. I looked at a black MR once that was registered on the day of the increase!
Very few were registered before so qualify for the lower amount.
 
Can you register it abroad?
I don’t suppose people pay road tax if they drive in from abroad.
I’m pretty sure you can register a car anywhere.
Probably very complicated, but if you think this will cost over £8,000 in ten years (accounting for increases) if you are gonna keep the car it could be worth looking into. Not sure how this would subsequently affect insurance etc.
 
If you drive in from abroad you probably get free tax and fuel, maybe accommodation and money towards servicing, perhaps even free track days?
 
Car tax is cheap nowadays!
In 1962, when the average yearly wage was around £800 p/a, car tax was a blanket £14.0s.0d which equates to just under 2% of the average wage.
In 2025 when the average yearly wage is £30,000 p/a, car tax ranges from £0 to £760.00. The vast majority of cars pay just £195 a year which is much less than 1% of the average salary.

AND in 1962 virtually no-one could afford two (or more) cars.

So if you don't like paying £760.00 a year, get a post 2017 car and stop complaining! :)
 
The last couple of years I have SORN'd mine on 31 January then taxed it on 1 March as it's the shortest month and tends to have the worst weather when I wouldn't use it anyway!

Bonus is taxing on 1 March cost £735 before it went up in April, although I'll have to pay £760 next year. 😢

The other option would be to find an imported one because they pay a much lower rate, although it might not be easy to track an RHD one down.
 
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CliveN said:
The only way to make it sensible if you have a few cars is to SORN on/ SORN off all the time and make sure you use the cars often but not over a join of months. My road tax bill is actually quite small because I juggle them. But if you do it this way always buy 12 months and reclaim, but again when necessary, reclaim, repeat
Click to expand...
Problem with that is trying to find somewhere to pay all the fecking cheques in! :rofl:
 
Everyone’s banging on about road tax and pushing people into EVs, but here’s the thing — my 2011 Z4 does under 5,000 miles a year, mostly weekends. Yet I’m hit with nearly £400 road tax, while EVs have been getting away with £0 until next year.

What nobody talks about is the fact that EVs still rely on fossil fuels. Power stations don’t run on magic, and if you add up the production costs of batteries and the electricity demand, many EVs are burning through more fossil fuel than my petrol Z4 ever will.

So why should a well-kept petrol car, barely used, get hammered with higher tax, while an EV driver doing huge annual mileage is still called “green”?

Feels like it’s more about revenue than saving the planet.
 
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