DVLA Double Dipping

johnreynolds59

Road Tax – When you buy a vehicle the road tax is not transferable.

A refund is issued automatically ounce DVLA have been informed of a change of keeper. However, any refunds are only issued for full months i.e. if you transfer on the 1st of a month then the refund would not be issued for that month (as it is not a complete month) it would be issued from the next complete’ month. A new owner has to tax the vehicle from the date of transfer for that whole month as in the whole of the previous month despite DVLA already having received duty for that month i.e. If you wish to drive the car straight away and you Tax on 31st May you have to pay for all of May despite there being just one day left and it already been paid for? If not you have to SORN for a single day or be fined even if you tax the very next day, 1st June.

DVLA get paid twice – Double Dipping!

Grumpy_chap

johnreynolds59 said:

Road Tax – When you buy a vehicle the road tax is not transferable.

A refund is issued automatically ounce DVLA have been informed of a change of keeper. However, any refunds are only issued for full months i.e. if you transfer on the 1st of a month then the refund would not be issued for that month (as it is not a complete month) it would be issued from the next complete’ month. A new owner has to tax the vehicle from the date of transfer for that whole month as in the whole of the previous month despite DVLA already having received duty for that month i.e. If you wish to drive the car straight away and you Tax on 31st May you have to pay for all of May despite there being just one day left and it already been paid for? If not you have to SORN for a single day or be fined even if you tax the very next day, 1st June.

DVLA get paid twice – Double Dipping!

You are correct.
Small amounts in the wider scheme of things.
End of month change of ownership plus SORN overnight is a way to avoid the outcome.

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Grumpy_chap said:

Small amounts in the wider scheme of things.

7.5 million used cars sold last year. If only 10% get double dipped it is hardly small change (well it might be to Sunak on a personal level.......)

TooManyPoints

If only 10% get double dipped... 

Only those who go through the SORN process to cover the cusp of the months or those which are kept off road and "in trade" will not get "double dipped." The  Exchequer will get an extra month's VED for all the others. This is not a sudden revelation. It was realised as soon as the new arrangements were announced some years ago.

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TooManyPoints said:

The  Exchequer will get an extra month's VED for all the others. This is not a sudden revelation. It was realised as soon as the new arrangements were announced some years ago.

It is almost as if they thought about it and did it deliberately

Car_54

TooManyPoints said:

If only 10% get double dipped... 

Only those who go through the SORN process to cover the cusp of the months or those which are kept off road and "in trade" will not get "double dipped." The  Exchequer will get an extra month's VED for all the others. This is not a sudden revelation. It was realised as soon as the new arrangements were announced some years ago.

Indeed it is not. This is just the latest in a long list of threads on the subject over many years.

Grumpy_chap

To counter this effect, there are also those who just fail to get VED for whatever reason.  It is not all old bangers where the charge cannot be afforded.  I was surprised this week to see a 68 plate A-Class clamped and when I entered the reg in the check car tax website, it was shown as tax expired 21st January, so that must have been the change of keeper and the new keeper just decided not to bother.  On a car like that, the charge would be quite low, certainly in relation to the cost of the car.

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Before "They" decided that too many cars were slipping through the net and made it "one price for all" in 2017, quite a few cars "got away" with a zero VED rating.

"New" owners often don't realise that you still have to tax them, but it is free of charge.  Consequently you see them clamped sometimes for being untaxed!

[Deleted User]

I've bought cars in private sales near the end of the month before and SORNed them for a couple of days then taxed them on the first of the month.

marlot

It's not because of some evil reason.  It's because behind the pretty web forms, the systems at DVLA are old mainframe programmes.  They were designed when tax carried over from owner to owner.  When the new rules were devised, it was too hard to convert the old mainframe systems from monthly to daily.

It was always the case that if you cashed in a tax disk, you only got back complete months.  But it didn't use to matter, as you simply 'sold' the tax disk with the car.

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marlot said:

It's not because of some evil reason.  It's because behind the pretty web forms, the systems at DVLA are old mainframe programmes.  They were designed when tax carried over from owner to owner.  When the new rules were devised, it was too hard to convert the old mainframe systems from monthly to daily.

It was always the case that if you cashed in a tax disk, you only got back complete months.  But it didn't use to matter, as you simply 'sold' the tax disk with the car.

Hanlon's razor    I'm not so sure, these people are neither stupid nor incompetent- even though they try to project that impression .

I didn't write the programme, but how hard would it really have been to make the tax liability start from the first of the next month if the vehicle is currently taxed......