Car Tax new system - 'con'

Valli

If I buy a car I am, apparently, required to tax it myself, immediately. Fair enough.

If that car is second hand and already taxed the DVLA will, it seems, refund the seller for COMPLETE months of unused tax.

It appears, then, that during the month of transfer both the buyer and the seller will have to pay tax for that month, no matter what the date of sale is so, in effect, the Government is getting extra tax revenue!

dacouch

Valli wrote: »

If I buy a car I am, apparently, required to tax it myself, immediately. Fair enough.

If that car is second hand and already taxed the DVLA will, it seems, refund the seller for COMPLETE months of unused tax.

It appears, then, that during the month of transfer both the buyer and the seller will have to pay tax for that month, no matter what the date of sale is so, in effect, the Government is getting extra tax revenue!

The day before it was introduced the Jeremy Vine show had the DVLA CEO on who was extolling the system would save about £20m in Administration costs. He conveniently avoided the money DVLA will make in the the situation you describe.

He also stated it would help catch cloned cars which was shot down when he was asked how many cloned cars have been prosecuted. He tried spinning an answer but was confronted with a journalist who had a freedom of information report which stated that zero cloned cars have been prosecuted for being cloned.

The icing on the cake was when he was asked how the lack of a tax disc would be enforced. The DVLA do not currently have access to the police road side ANPR cameras so they rely on their own cars that they park up next to the road side. When asked how many cars they have to cover the entire UK he replied ten. He was very surprised at the laughter from Jeremy and the caller on the phone. He was adamant the DVLA could enforce people not paying the road tax by having just ten cars parked up at various parts of the UK.

LilElvis

I believe they also now let you pay by monthly instalments which, though helping those who find paying for road tax in a single payment hard, will also net them more money as they charge more for choosing this payment method.

powerful_Rogue

LilElvis wrote: »

I believe they also now let you pay by monthly instalments which, though helping those who find paying for road tax in a single payment hard, will also net them more money as they charge more for choosing this payment method.

Yes and no!

Although you pay an extra 5% for paying via direct debit, in the past you had to pay an extra 10% of you only wanted to tax your car for 6 months instead of a year.

Money-Saving-King

dacouch wrote: »

He was adamant the DVLA could enforce people not paying the road tax by having just ten cars parked up at various parts of the UK.

But surely the data base of who owns what car and whether it's taxed or not will show if a car is untaxed?

bod1467

I see this thread has been moved from Motoring.

Lioness_Twinkletoes

I am sure that this was also the case when one had to buy a paper tax disc. You only ever get refunded for full, unused months. They don't do apportionments! The difference now is you don't have the option of buying a car and keeping the tax on it. Of course, buyers and sellers can negate this slightly by buying/selling at the end of the month.

Valli

Lioness_Twinkletoes wrote: »

I am sure that this was also the case when one had to buy a paper tax disc. You only ever get refunded for full, unused months. They don't do apportionments! The difference now is you don't have the option of buying a car and keeping the tax on it. Of course, buyers and sellers can negate this slightly by buying/selling at the end of the month.

Technically the vendor would have to sell on the last day of the month and the buyer buy on the first of the next month!

paddyrg

Tax/month 'twas always thus, but seller might have left disc for buyer as a part of the price. However most people don't change secondhand cars frequently enough for this to be a 'con' - once every few years probably.

nomoneytoday

Buy a hybrid and then road tax is free, whenever in the month you buy or sell it

dacouch

Money-Saving-King wrote: »

But surely the data base of who owns what car and whether it's taxed or not will show if a car is untaxed?

The anpr cars are for fining people who drive an untaxed road on the road. They're basically doing the job the local bobby would have done by checking physical tax discs