DVLA Tax Refund Backdating

AdrianC

Lucius45 wrote: »

The system is a bizarre mix of posted forms and online processing - the car will only have one keeper but this is out of sync with who taxes it

You can only tax a car with the V5C or the V11 reminder - both of which have the keeper's name and address on them. So, yes, somebody else can pay for the tax on the keeper's behalf, but they're taxing it in the keeper's name. And the keeper gets the refund.


For the new keeper to tax it in their name, they need to use the V5C/2 New Keeper slip's doc ref.

leading to other weird loopholes like if A sends the log book by post, B can get away with driving without tax for that short period because DVLA won't know about it until they receive the form.

At which point, the tax gets refunded as of the change-of-keeper date on the V5C, and the new keeper becomes liable as of that date.

(as it stands, my letter is only saying I sold to the dealer, so there could be more confusion for the new owner...)

Selling to a dealer means you should have sent the V5C/3 slip to DVLA, while the dealer keeps the full V5C for the new keeper. That triggers a refund, too, but the car cannot be taxed again until the new keeper taxes it on the V5C/2 or their own V5C - it can't be taxed by the dealer "in trade".

Lucius45

They must have used the new keeper's slip and taxed in their name. At this point DVLA should recognise it is about to undergo a change of ownership and honour the tax refund to the original owner back to this date, but they don't - they are basically sitting on 2 payments for the exact same thing.

The V11 reminder wasn't due (and would have come to me anyway), there's a slim chance they used my V5C if the dealer gave it to them, though I'm not sure if the tax could be extended in the original keeper's (my) name if it wasn't up for renewal.

The V5C/3 slip wasn't sent as I foolishly thought the dealer had done everything online, lesson learnt!

At which point, the tax gets refunded as of the change-of-keeper date on the V5C, and the new keeper becomes liable as of that date.

- they don't though, they refund from the date they receive the information. If notification is by post this will be a couple of days, so could potentially go over and lose a full month of refund. Yes here the delay was my / the dealer's fault but supposing the letter got lost in the post, or supposing B got a fixed camera speeding ticket in those couple of days, it's going to be sent to A.

AdrianC

No, it's from the date on the form. If you were to date the form at the end of January, post it, and it gets received and processed in February, the refund will include February.

I once posted a tax disc back from Mauritania on New Year's Eve... and still got January refunded. Frankly, I was astonished it was received by DVLA at all...

Lucius45

Wow, that's even more ridiculous then - they backdate a refund if I put the date on the V5C/3 but if I write a signed letter stating the exact same thing then they don't

Aylesbury_Duck

Lucius45 wrote: »

Wow, that's even more ridiculous then - they backdate a refund if I put the date on the V5C/3 but if I write a signed letter stating the exact same thing then they don't

I think that's just because the V5C/3 is the official document, whereas a signed letter isn't and can be written by anyone.

AdrianC

Lucius45 wrote: »

Wow, that's even more ridiculous then - they backdate a refund if I put the date on the V5C/3 but if I write a signed letter stating the exact same thing then they don't

No, the refund isn't backdated - it's done from the date of transfer that you attested to on the V5C/3 that you sent off in a timely fashion, as the instructions on the V5C tell you is your legal responsibility to do...

The letter's only needed because you didn't do that bit, and are now trying to backdate the change of keeper...