Example of Road Tax Idiocy.

 Okay, here's a car, it's £1500 currently on eBay, and I doubt anyone will touch it:

Why, you ask? Well, because government legislation actually make this car impossible to justify. 

First off, local government in London i imposing the wider ULEZ zone, which this diesel car falls foul of. If it were petrol it probably would be ULEZ compliant, but Diesels have to be Euro 6 compliant which means realistically they have to be made after 2016 and have all the Euro 6 complications like DPFs that clog and use adblue which needs refilling, not always easily. Also being a newer car they are a lot more expensive. 

Second, if you pay the road tax on this car monthly, as most of us cash-strapped people do, then it's over £700 a year. That's £60 a month just to keep the car on the road. That's an unjustifiable expense when you're on close to minimum wage.

It actually costs more to tax than it does to insure. 

It really can't be right that the road tax on a car is half the car's value, let alone more expensive that the insurance.

It get the fact that when it was new and the car was worth a significant amount of money, then the owner of the car would probably figure that £700 a year is a minor price to pay. Anyone that can buy a twenty or thirty thousand pound car probably sees that sum as justifiable.

But to me £675 (the price of a one-off payment) is around half a month's wages. I have other bills like council tax and energy bills to pay.

I resent that the government is restricting my choices by their interference. As it is they are forcing me into a teeny hatchback, which unfortunately doesn't suit my needs. I resent that the government are backing me into a corner, for what exactly?

Just because it's a great way of raising tax.