MSE News: Revealed: 34,000 fined last year for not taxing vehicles which are FREE to tax

Former_MSE_Callum

Drivers paid over £500,000 in fines last year for not applying to tax vehicles which cost nothing to tax, data obtained by MoneySavingExpert.com shows...

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'Revealed: 34,000 fined last year for not taxing vehicles which are FREE to tax'

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karlie88

Seems fair to me.

peter_the_piper

Plain daft not to, 60 seconds online and its done.

Herzlos

I don't think it's laziness, I just don't think it's clear enough that "free road tax" means they still need to tax it and pay nothing.



What benefit does "taxing" it have here that's worth the administrative cost? Continuous insurance? If that's all it is, just change the wording so that any car which isn't SORN must be insured and have a valid MOT.

Stoke

Herzlos wrote: »

I don't think it's laziness, I just don't think it's clear enough that "free road tax" means they still need to tax it and pay nothing.



What benefit does "taxing" it have here that's worth the administrative cost? Continuous insurance? If that's all it is, just change the wording so that any car which isn't SORN must be insured and have a valid MOT.

I totally agreed at first. To me, it felt like a great little money spinner for HM Gov, that they could mug off people with £0 tax cars by doing this.

So I decided to do some research into it..... I suspect the reason is so the DVLA know which cars are on the road, and which aren't. Taxing the vehicle, albeit for free, indicates to the DVLA that the car has not been crashed, SORN'd, stolen, written off etc. If there is no requirement to do this, then the current status of the car is unknown and that could last x number of years?

Paul_DNAP

It would have been much clearer if we still got the little paper disc every year - you still need a new paper disc, even if you're getting it for free. But in the paperless world it's less obvious that you still need to obtain your updated "virtual tax disc" every year.
It's always confusing when you get an invoice for £0, how do you pay nothing, do you even have to pay it? Maybe the "no VED" should be altered to a token amount, say a penny, so they say "you need to come and give us £0.01 to get your new year's VED"

Aylesbury_Duck

Totally fair.

VT82

I would want to see the wording on the letter to judge.


Banks nowadays fall over themselves to make the important messages in letters as clear as possible, with 'what do you need to know' and 'what do I do now?' written as big as possible. This is partly because they have an effective regulator, and partly because it's just obviously the right thing to do.


In my experience, the public sector (DVLA being one of the worst offenders) is at the opposite end of the spectrum, with terribly designed unhelpful letters being in use for years, and no one is either paid enough to care about making it better, or is held responsible for making things better. It's why I dread any more nationalisation of pretty much anything.


So as I say, I couldn't judge without seeing how obvious or otherwise the letter made it.

Marvel1

VT82 wrote: »

So as I say, I couldn't judge without seeing how obvious or otherwise the letter made it.

Does this help?

http://acierta.us/v11-reminder-letter.html/ideas-collection-v11-reminder-letter-also-letter

http://oliff.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CarTaxV11.jpg

Wizard_of_Id

I was not aware that I still had to go through the paperwork even though my road tax was zero, it was not clear on the form that came in, only when I got a reminder was it in plain English that I still had to go through the motions online.

glennamy

Everyone should remember but I think since they done away with the issuing of discs that you had to display and you saw them every day, it seems to have has fallen out of a lot of people's minds, including MOT's, which I liked to do at the same time when renewing...