Thinktank says an ‘SUV loophole’ means UK buyers pay up to 20 times less tax on biggest models than in neighbouring nations
  • waz@feddit.ukEnglish
    31·
    6 days ago

    More sloppy reporting from the guardian, at least proof read the work. Tax £66,610 on an £85,000 vehicle? 3 times as much as the cost in the uk of £3200? I think someone put another 0 on that, and they still managed to publish it.

    • HermitBee@feddit.ukEnglish
      21·
      6 days ago

      I’m not sure what the mistake is? France charge a £50k premium, so £66k tax doesn’t sound unreasonable.

      It doesn’t say that that £66k is 3 times the cost, it says there are 13 countries which have a greater acquisition tax than 3x the UK rate. As far as I can see, it doesn’t mention the relative costs between the UK and France.

      • waz@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        If it’s mean to be a single digit multiple of the uk tax, at 3k, then it can’t be 66k

        • HermitBee@feddit.ukEnglish
          21·
          5 days ago

          It’s not meant to be a single digit multiple of the UK tax, I don’t know where you’re getting that from. The things which the article mentions as being single digit multiples are:

          In 13 countries, acquisition taxes for such an SUV are more than three times higher than the UK’s

          £3,200 in the UK, but the sale would incur taxes of £66,600 in France – driving UK SUV sales to four times the level in France.

          And the headline figure is “up to 20 times”, which roughly matches the £66k.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    What’s an SUV though because the industry has a lot of cars they call SUVs and quite a lot and don’t look remotely like each other.

    I have an SUV from 2015 and the Volvo XC90 dwarfs it despite it apparently not been an SUV, so how does that work?

    • als@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      Volvo XC90

      I searched this and Volvo’s page for it calls it a “Large mild hybrid SUV”. Here’s a Volvo XC90 compared to a BMW X1 from 2011-2015. It would seem that SUVs have been increasing in size …

      • Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        Yeah essentially at this point what I own easy effectively a large car and not an SUV. The term effectively being rendered irrelevant by car manufacturer. At this point it means any vehicle that is not a hatchback.

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    I doubt it’d raise that much (the article states £1.72bn), as there seems to be an assumption increasing the tax wouldn’t lead to a reduction in SUVs, and that everyone would just absorb the cost.

    However, I still say go ahead! Even if it only raises a quarter of that, that’s still money coming in, and it means fewer SUVs on our roads. That’s a win-win.