By IRNA
London : Motorists in Britain will have to pay a vehicle licencing charge for their cars based on carbon dioxide emissions from April, even though the tax is supposed to be for the cost of road maintenance.
Announcing the plan in the country’s annual budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said that it was to encourage the use of less polluting cars in a bid to tackle climate change.
Under the scheme, the most polluting vehicles, like the Land Rover Sport, face an annual Pnds 950 (Dlrs 1,900) “showroom” tax that will come into effect from April 2010 for emitting more than 255g of carbon dioxide per kilometre.
Transport in the UK is the second-largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, accounting for 28% of all emissions, but tax specialists are skeptical whether the new measures will have any real effect and suggest it is a smokescreen for raising revenue.
Daniel Lyons at Deloitte told the BBC that imposing higher taxes on the most polluting cars would make little difference in changing consumer behaviour because the levy was not high enough.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders was also critical of the plan, saying that the introduction, changing from the size of the engine, was a retrograde step being effectively another sales tax.
The initial reclassification from next month is seven levels of carbon dioxide emissions rising to 13 next year, but only covers cars at first manufactured after 2001.