Recovery hit hardest
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by Ian Wylie • Hauliers could face massive increases in breakdown bills if the Government presses ahead with plans to charge recovery operators almost 60 times more in Vehicle Excise Duty from next July.
The proposal in last week's Budget to raise VED on the heaviest recovery trucks from the current rate flat of £85 to £5,000 could add as much as £1,500 to recovery bills in remote areas of the country, warns the Association of Vehicle Recovery Operators.
Recovery operators have enjoyed a concessionary VED rate since 1987 because their businesses are classified as emergency services.
But from July the Government intends to tax 17,500 recovery vehicles in the same way as HGVs and according to gross vehicle weight.
AVRO president George Graham says no operator can afford to pay £5,000 on a 38-tonne recovery vehicle which is used fewer than half a dozen times a year. are low use but essential vehicles," says Graham, whose seven heavy recovery vehicles could now cost him £35,000 a year in VED instead of the current bill of £595.
"If a lorry rolls over, it takes two heavy recovery vehicles to recover it," he says. "But very few operators will be able to provide that service under these new tax rates."