Car Tax Ripoff

Frankness_B

I recently bought a car (in the middle of the month) and read that there is no 'Grace' period for taxing it. The reason given is because its all done 'on-line' now. I went to the post office with the green form from the V5 & completed the new keepers form only to find my new car was taxed from the start of the month, which ment I had lost nearly 3 weeks cover.
Surely it's time the DVLA sort this out, car tax should run from the date its purchased, just like our insurance and MOT.

Ebe_Scrooge

Frankness_B said:

only to find my new car was taxed from the start of the month, which ment I had lost nearly 3 weeks cover.

You sound like this came as a surprise?  It's always been this way.

Yes, it's been discussed ad nauseam on various forums - now that it's all computerised, they should easily be able to do it on a daily rather than monthly basis.  But hey, it's tax - you really think they want to reduce their income?

And anyway, in the grand scheme of things, 3 weeks' tax is a drop in the ocean.  I know, "it's the principle of the thing", but realistically there are more important things to worry about in life.

AdrianC

There never has been a "grace period". Tax is monthly, always has been.

The last relevant change to tax was that used cars are now always untaxed on keeper change, with the vendor getting a refund for unused months. That happened in 2014, when the piece of paper tax disc finally went in the bin. But that didn't affect most used cars, because anything bought from a trader was usually untaxed anyway.

Whether it should be weekly or even daily is a different question - and one for Parliament, not DVLA to decide - apart from anything else, just think about the chaos of people who commute by train in the week, taxing on a Friday then SORNing on Monday morning...

So how much was your three weeks' tax, given that the average new car in 2017 was £30/year...?

Marvel1

Always been that way, same with TV licence, expect now it's refund whole moths and not quarterly.

born_again

Frankness_B said:

I recently bought a car (in the middle of the month) and read that there is no 'Grace' period for taxing it. The reason given is because its all done 'on-line' now. I went to the post office with the green form from the V5 & completed the new keepers form only to find my new car was taxed from the start of the month, which ment I had lost nearly 3 weeks cover.
Surely it's time the DVLA sort this out, car tax should run from the date its purchased, just like our insurance and MOT.

Why would the DVLA want to fix something that is not broken?
VED has always run from the start of the month.