Car Tax - tax surchage

Ashleym1993

Hey there! 

New to the forum, I am awaiting delivery of my new (used) vehicle, and it has the Tax surcharge till 30th June 2023, now if I tax it for 2 years and sorn it to start on the 1st July 2023, how long do I have to wait till I can tax again. I'm essentially wanting to avoid paying the surcharge and trying to save as much money as possible.

Thanks in advance

Ashley

Car_54

Unless I've missed something, your post doesn't make sense.
"...if I tax it for 2 years and sorn it to start on the 1st July 2023 ..."
First, you can't tax it for more than one year. Second, you can't tax it and SORN it: it's either one or the other. And if you do SORN it, there's no end date.
If you want to save money, it makes no sense at all to buy a car and then SORN it. 

Ashleym1993

Hi Car_54,

Sorry I may have not been clear enough.

Basically the surcharge lasts until 30th June 2023.

If I tax the car for a year as of today, it will expire November 2022, and then if I tax it for another year from then it will expire a year later, however the surcharge runs out on 30th June 2023, so I was wondering whether it would be worth doing the following

Declare the vehicle as sorn from July 1st 2023, and then Tax the following day to avoid paying the surcharge constantly, does this make more sense?

Ashley

Grumpy_chap

You could tax the car now, so it expires end Nov 2022.

Then SORN from 1st December 2022.

Then tax again from July 2023.

In that period (Dec 2022 to July 2023) the car needs to be off-road, but you presumably still want to insure to cover your own risk of damage.  Plus you'll have costs of alternative transport while the car is on SORN.

If this is just to save money, then the MSE thing would have been to buy a cheaper car to start with.  If this is because the car is one that logically has seasonal use as a second car, then the idea might make more sense.

Belenus

You need to find out this.

If you tax it starting 1st November 2022 will you be charged the full surcharged rate for 12 months or will you be charged 8/12 of the surcharged rate plus 4/12 the non surcharged rate?

I don't know the answer but, if the latter applies, then you don't have to think about SORN.

If the former applies then I see no reason why you can't SORN it on 30th June 2023, get 4 months of the surcharged tax back and then un SORN it and tax it in early July but the DVLA may think differently.

There are presumably many thousands of car owners in a similar situation.

Ashleym1993

Belenus said:

You need to find out this.

If you tax it starting 1st November 2022 will you be charged the full surcharged rate for 12 months or will you be charged 8/12 of the surcharged rate plus 4/12 the non surcharged rate?

I don't know the answer but, if the latter applies, then you don't have to think about SORN.

If the former applies then I see no reason why you can't SORN it on 30th June 2023, get 4 months of the surcharged tax back and then un SORN it and tax it in early July but the DVLA may think differently.

There are presumably many thousands of car owners in a similar situation.

This is exactly what I was thinking in the 3rd paragraph to save money, I will ring DVLA at the time and enquire.

Many Thanks

Ash

facade

You have to wait 5 days before you can tax it online following a SORN, but you can go to the Post Office the next day.

So,

Tax it for 12 months now, and write down how much it costs.

See how much the tax is for 12 months next December. If it is less then the surcharge is only charged for the remaining 7 months, and they have missed an obvious trick, but you don't need do anything- except pay the tax

I'm fairly sure you will be charged the surcharge for the whole year though.

The problem is if they  are charging the full years surcharge when only 7 months are due and you SORN it, I bet they won't give you the remaining surcharge back, only the VED pro rata (they would hardly miss an obvious pot of money)

If that is the case then the best option would be to tax for 6 months next December, then SORN it for June.

OTOH, if the car doesn't turn up until January, then problem solved, as you could tax for 6 months next January if the 12 month tax includes a full years surcharge, and the tax will fall due 1st July when the surcharge has run out.

jimjames

Alternatively you could SORN it on 30 June 2022 and then take out a year's tax from 1 July 2022 so the next tax due will be on 1 July 2023 when it will be the lower rate.

facade

jimjames said:

Alternatively you could SORN it on 30 June 2022 and then take out a year's tax from 1 July 2022 so the next tax due will be on 1 July 2023 when it will be the lower rate.

What if the SORN refund doesn't refund the higher rate only the basic rate?

DVLA don't talk about things like this, but bearing in mind that if you SORN in the first year they definitely don't refund any of the extra CO2 duty from the first tax payment, I'd put money on them only refunding at the basic (year 6 onwards) rate.

jimjames

facade said:

jimjames said:

Alternatively you could SORN it on 30 June 2022 and then take out a year's tax from 1 July 2022 so the next tax due will be on 1 July 2023 when it will be the lower rate.

What if the SORN refund doesn't refund the higher rate only the basic rate?

No idea. I never get a refund on SORN as I pay monthly so the new payment starts with the new DD

Belenus

Another factor to consider is that we can only find out the current VED rules.

Those rules or laws may well have changed by 2023.

The government or DVLA may well close up any possible existing loopholes that reduce their income.