Tax break for black cabs to drive switch to electric

It will come into force this April, a year earlier than initially planned

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The Treasury has announced a tax exemption worth £1,550 for black cabs to switch to greener vehicles.

It will come into force this April, a year earlier than initially planned and will apply to new cabs worth more than £40,000.

The zero-emission taxis were liable for a luxury car tax – worth £310 per year for five years – but the government hopes cabbies will be incentivised to replace their polluting diesel cars for a greener version with the latest announcement.

According to figures from the Treasury, each vehicle switching to a zero-emission car would save around seven tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and £400 a month in fuel costs.

Speaking to ELN at the London Electric Vehicle Company’s (LEVC) showroom, Robert Jenrick MP, Exchequer to the Treasury said: “We just want to go further and faster in tackling air quality. It’s an issue that matters to everybody, to myself as a parent bringing up children in London and to people all of our big cities, not just London.

“We’re looking for every opportunity that we can as a government to tackle it and to tackle it in a way that works. And in this case it’s to help black cabbies who can see this great technology. These are really impressive new vehicles that are on the market, some have already been sold on the streets of London, there are 600 that have been pre-ordered so this technology is here and we want to help black cabbies to embrace it and to get into these vehicles and get them on the streets as soon as possible.”

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