Car Tax

Size Counts

Car tax is based on the size of the engine. The larger the engine, the higher the tax. For instance, a 1.3 litre engine will pay annual taxes approaching €300 while a 1.6 litre engine pays nearly €400 and a 2 litre behemoth will set you back by over €650. This tax does not drop with age. A twenty year old car pays exactly the same as an equivalent sized new auto.

We're promised huge increases for bigger gas guzzlers in 2008. Ireland is a forward looking nation, which explains why 10pc of all vehicles sold in 2007 are enormous SUV's. It's irrational, I know, except that VAT tax will also hugely increase in 2008 on these behemoths. So, bad as it's going to get, it still makes some sort of sense to buy big in 2007. And then pay and pay and pay and....

In order to tax a newly-imported car, the importer must present it at a regional licensing authority (usually the county office) with a Vehicle Registration Certificate and an IF100 Import Form, which will be obtained from Customs and Excise at the time of importation. Again, for official customs information and forms, click here.

Private cars are taxed by a fixed annual rate which is calculated according to the cubic capacity (cc) of the vehicle. Local county councils set their own tax rate, which may vary by up to 3% from one county to the next. Here are the base rates from which the counties all started.

You won't be surprised to find out that no county has forsworn the 3% annual rise.

The Department of Environment maintains an online system which you can use to pay our road tax. The alternative is to handle it all by snail mail or to head into your nearest County or Corporation (City) Road Tax Office. The online site has an out of date road tax chart available for download. Unfortunately, the chart stops long before SUV motor sizes are reached.

Or, try using the dated tax chart below which gives you base figures which have been raised several times. But, it does give you the idea in a glance.