Vehicle excise duty (VED) or Road Tax as it’s better known is set to rise from the 1st of April this year as part of a government plan to pay for the majority of future road repairs and upgrades through taxes levied against motorists. With VED being now linked to increases in the Retail Price Index the annual road tax cost will go up by £5 for the majority of drivers. However depending on your vehicle this increase could be more as owners of older or more polluting cars will be charged up to an additional £15 per year while some new car buyers will be hit with an extra £65 charge on the first-year VED.
As before road tax costs will vary depending on the vehicles CO2 emissions and the fuel type that it uses (petrol, diesel or hybrid) with electric vehicles being exempt from charge. With the approaching 2020 Emissions legislations any vehicles that don’t meet these standards will be also be stung with higher VED costs.
The last big overhaul of the UK's VED system came into force from 1 April 2017, making many cars much more expensive to run while further changes were introduced in for implementation in April 2018. If you bought your car before the 1st of April 2017 or buy a used car that was registered before this date then you won't have been affected by the 2018 tax changes because they only apply to cars registered on or after that date from the 1st of April 2018 to the 31st of March 2019.
These older cars will continue to be taxed according to the old system of CO2 emissions which means that in the vast majority of cases you'll be better off and for those owners of cars that qualify for free VED it’s still important to apply for and renew your road tax as even though there’s no fee to pay ignoring the renewal notice runs the risk of a fine of up to £1000!
The DVLA requires every car to be either taxed (even if it’s free) or declared off the road by filing a Statutory Off-Road Notification every year and it’s now a simple online process; so make sure you do it for your car and remember to renew it!
You can find the full list of Vehicle Tax Rates for the April 2019 changes provided by the DVLA on the Government website here.
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