We’ve already said goodbye to the tax disc, which is a shame. We’ll get over that one I expect. The more challenging concept has to be that we can no longer inherit the seller's tax disc when we buy a used car from 5 October.
I think we can all understand why this is being done. It may be hard to believe but there are some naughty people who very rarely bother to pay vehicle excise duty (VED). Without reading the convoluted ‘Draft Clauses and Explanatory Notes’ for the proposed Finance Bill 2014, the gist of the new rule is that the seller has to cash in the old tax disc and the buyer has to get a new one.
Under the regulations, the seller would not get a full refund unless the transaction was completed at the very start of the month. Meanwhile the buyer would have to pay for an entire month whatever the date. So there is a potential for the government, which never has its own money except ours anyway, to get even more of it.
I spoke to the DVLA about all this, and you know what? They are still working on the final details. I gave them my ten pence worth about us being able to do everything through our smartphones, so it shouldn’t be a problem. They weren’t interested, of course, and have promised to get back to me once they have worked it all out. I do hope that it is a very simple system which means that everything is online and that the tax will run from a particular date, just like insurance. We’ll see.
If you have any decent suggestions please share them below. It may even include dropping VED altogether.
Oh, and just so you don’t waste those now-redundant windscreen tax disc holders, I have printed up several thousand circular images with motivational pictures and messages. Some of them feature transport ministers, with my favourites being Barbara Castle and Michael Portillo.
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The police may have ANPR
Personally, I liked the system we had in Germany, where the registration plate is issued by the (in their case, local) authority and a simple tag is added when everything is in order. Certainly, when I lived there, if your insurance or tax expired, the police would come and remove the plates from your car. This would also stop the increasingly popular mucking about with the letters to suit the nefarious or egotistical notions of the owner.
The govt will not listen to any suggestions made; it's not in their nature. Expect to pay more and to find it much easier to transgress on a technicality.
Predictably impractical
As CWBROWN has pointed out what about the practicalities driving a freshly purchased second hand car home? Or how about test driving the car before buying it? As a seller you wouldn't be able to reclaim the balance of your tax until you had sold your car. This revised process is going to increase the workload of the DVLA because almost every seller is going to reclaim their unused tax whereas now very few people (just motor traders) do so.
It's not about raising revenue.
If it was about making it fair then yes I agree it would be simple to add it to fuel duty.
It's not about saving money either because the cost of all the new camera's will have to be more expensive than the post office selling a bit of paper. In addition the data collected will need to be processed on massive NSA style computers.
But it's not and I disagree with James when he says " I think we can all understand why this is being done." Because few will realise it will give the government an excuse to put up more surveillance camera's on the Nations roads and continue to build the police state that is clearly emerging.
Few will also realise that the Home Secretary next week will be deciding wether to equip the police with German water canons in preparation for the expected riots that the government fully expects on account of the austerity measures ( austerity for you not MP's who will be getting an 11% pay rise) and continued oppression.
These water canons alone cost 1.3 million pounds each which you as a tax payer will be paying for while your roads remain full of pot holes.
Time to wake up to the governments plans to control all you do.
Remember also that they do this with your consent if you remain silent without speaking up for your human rights.