During yesterday’s UK budget, we reported on how the government are implementing a new approach to car tax that will (by 2017) see owners of all new vehicles pay some level of vehicle excise duty. Unfortunately this means that the days when choosing an environmentally-friendly vehicle could mean no road tax at all are nearly over.
Thankfully, there was some more welcome news in the budget for motorists, with the announcement that fuel duty will remain frozen at least until the end of this year.
Although a pledge had previously been made to keep this tax frozen until September, many people (including some Conservative politicians) wondered whether Chancellor George Osborne might stealthily raise it by introducing an inflation linked increase that he could argue still represented a “real terms” freeze.
However, for once the doom-sayers were incorrect, so while motorists could still see petrol prices going up for other reasons, it’s not going to be additional tax that’s the cause – at least for now.
It’s perhaps prudent at this point to remind ourselves that we already pay 57.95 pence in tax on every litre of fuel we put in our vehicles, which is a larger sum than practically anywhere else! With this in mind, we can stop short of actually considering this measure generous. Still, every little helps!
IMAGE CREDIT: Flickr