In 2009 the car tax bands are changing. The Government is using the opportunity to significantly increase the Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) on vehicles which emit greater amounts of CO2, and thus are believed to contribute to Climate Change.
The problem is that the sneaky buggers are making the change retrospective. In other words the change will apply to cars you have already bought. So you could have bought a large car a couple of years ago in all innocence, and may now find you'll be whacked for an additional duty of hundreds of pounds!
Well, the first thing would be to check if you're going to be affected. The Taxpayers Alliance reckon that 88% of cars will be liable for higher duty. Even the Treasury admit that 9.4 million households will pay more tax after the change. You could also write to your MP and point out how unfair this is.
Vehicle Excise Duty is calculated on the CO2 emissions from your make/model of car. All car models manufactured in the last few years have been tested and the results stored on a Government database, which is used to calculate the average CO2 for a particular model of car, and thus the amount of Vehicle Excise Duty that is payable. The official database can be found at www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk .
Well the official database has a few problems. Firstly it's not particularly easy to find a particular model of car. Secondly, due to the way the database is maintained, some older models of car aren't accessible through their search interface. This site attempts to fix both problems by consolidating all the official databases into a single, simple, searchable system.
First of all, if your car was manufacturered before 2001 then the CO2 based charge does not apply. Instead the duty payable is based on the capacity of your engine. From 2009/10 this will be £125 for cars with an engine capacity below 1549cc, and £190 (rising to £205 in 2010/11) for cars with an engine capacity above 1549cc.
Our data comes from the official Government data files. If it's not in their files then it won't be on our site. Sometimes you may find your particular model listed under a similar model name. Occasionally if a new model is launched, the data for models in the previous range are moved into the new range under the new model name.
Don't despair. If you dig out your Vehicle Registration Certificate (V5) you should find the CO2 figure on the certificate. You can then use our alternative calculator to work out what tax band your car will fall in.
If you have any more questions then please don't hesitate to contact the webmaster.
Site copyright ©2008 Lothian Productions. Vehicle Data is Crown Copyright and used with permission.