Vehicle Excise Duty

Categories: Tax

Every year or two, depending on the state in which we live, we have to register or re-register our vehicle and pay a fee. The UK has something similar, and they call it a “vehicle excise duty.”

The vehicle excise duty, or VED, has been around since 1888, though it’s been changed and reworked roughly a million times since then. In general, though, there are several excise price “bands,” and each vehicle falls into one of those bands. Clean-energy vehicles typically receive a lower fee, as do newer vehicles.

This is kind of the opposite of how it’s done in some states in the U.S., where our registration fee is based on the value of our car, which tends to mean that, the older the car is, the less we have to pay every year. But the UK’s goal is to promote newer, more efficient and environmentally-responsible vehicles, which is why they, uh...do like they do.



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