Roadfund licence set to nolonger carry over to the new owner

[NTECUK]

From October 2014 if you purchase a used vehicle you will need to tax it yourself, even if there is remaining duty left.

[Winder]

I can see how the government can make a fortune on this.
You pay for a years tax, sell it after 8 months. New owner buys car and pays for tax. That means 4 months over payment.
But, surely you can still get a refund on your tax when you SORN it??? If so just SORN before you sell, get your refund and government gets nothing???
Or am I being stupid?

[NTECUK]

“…it will no longer be possible to transfer the benefit of a vehicle licence when there is a change of registered keeper. As a consequence of this, where there is a new registered keeper he/she will be obliged to take out a new vehicle licence when the vehicle to which the vehicle licence relates is transferred to him/her. The reason for now preventing vehicle licences being transferred from registered keeper to registered keeper is to avoid a new registered keeper unknowingly keeping an unlicensed vehicle. For example, in the absence of a paper licence a vehicle may be purchased supposedly with the benefit of a vehicle licence. The new keeper would believe that the vehicle was licensed, but the former keeper could apply for a refund of VED without the knowledge of the new keeper resulting on the new keeper having an unlicensed vehicle.”

The reasoning makes a certain amount of sense, although the ability to instantly check any vehicle’s tax status online at the www.taxdisc.direct.gov website rather blows a hole in the idea that there’s no way the new keeper could tell whether his vehicle was taxed or not.

A cynic might say that since you can only get refunded for complete remaining months of VED, the government stands to scrape up a lot of part-months of extra tax revenue. Official figures show that around 7 million used vehicles get a change of ownership each year. If, on average, each has half a month’s worth of VED remaining, that’s 3.5 million extra months of VED being paid each year. The equivalent of 291,666 years’ worth. If we estimate that the average annual VED cost per vehicle is £200 (a fair guess given the spread of rates), then that’s somewhere in the region of 58.3 million pounds windfall to the tax man. Every year. Not a bad haul, really.

[DarrenSV650S]

So you have to pay for the vehicle, take the documents to the post office, then come back later for your vehicle? Genius!

[embee]

Have the details been published? (Edit - was typing while the other posts were made)

When this was first announced it immediately sounded like another can of worms. How do private sales work? At what point do you remove the tax from the vehicle, at which time it is no longer taxed and shouldn't be on the road, or is there a "hand-over" period of grace? Who is the responsible party during this period, the old registered keeper or the new one? Are we going to be expected to do the taxing only online, will there still be the Post Office option?

At first sight this looks like a stupid idea to me, but we'll see what the nuts and bolts turn out like. What problem is this supposed to be fixing? Why not just let it run with the vehicle? Everything is policed according to the databases these days, a piece of paper with MOT or Insurance Certficate printed on it is of absolutely no value if the computer says no, so why not just let the computer sort it?

As I see it the only winner is the DVLA/government in that they will always win with duplicated months of tax.

[Teejayexc]

Gonna make it interesting when you buy a second hand vehicle if the tax isn't transferable. Will this mean you'll need to trailer or van every purchase assuming the vehicle would be out of tax?

[Red ones]

It won't matter when the vehicle is sold there will always be an extra months tax paid. The vendor can only claim back full months of duty, the purchaser has to pay for a full month.

When I sold my bike in august I reclaimed the duty. It took 4 months of arguing as I was told I had never been the registered keeper and so the registered keeper would get the refund. Oddly I had owned the bike for 8 years and I was the registered keeper when the ANPR Intercept vehicle pulled me over.
Then I was told I had not made a valid claim although I had submitted the correct form and sent it registered mail.
It only got repaid when I threatened action for illegally withholding excise duty. It took about 3 days for the cheque to arrive at that point.

Best of luck for the future!

[atassiedevil]

I'd consider making road tax not refundable, and stay with the vehicle. This way if it has tax, you can check that and not have the rug pulled from under you when you buy a vehicle. Simplest way to resolve that problem.

[NTECUK]

That leaves the door wide open to the un insured brigade.
Not at all desirable

[atassiedevil]

Will still carry NPR markers for no insurance, which is the point of doing this, everything will be done by NPR, not pieces of paper which may or may not be forgeries.

[NTECUK]

If we're honest ANPR isn't that great.
This way will also help quieten the pressures groups.
It's also going to swell the government coffers.
You've never had it so good. ;)

[sputnik]

This perhaps has some tie in with the fact that from later in the year (Oct?) you will be able to buy road tax by monthly direct debit (about time too!) which will presumably significantly reduce the number of people sitting with a prepaid roadfund license on their hands that they may seek to get a refund on?

[Dipper]

Perhaps the simplest solution, however perhaps to simple for the DVLA... when a car is sold it is taxed to the end of the month in which it is sold, the seller receiving a refund on the unused whole months, the new owner taking up the responsibility of taxing the vehicle at the start of the following month.

[pookie]

why can they not pro rata it..the license is no longer paper based so there is no requirements for whole months and their multi coloured discs

[Dipper]

why can they not pro rata it..the license is no longer paper based so there is no requirements for whole months and their multi coloured discs

The discs are going and I doubt their software is capable of anything as clever as pro rata-ing, we are talking Govt. dept. after all :rolleyes:

[yorkie_chris]

That leaves the door wide open to the un insured brigade.
Not at all desirable

And this law won't make a blind bit of difference to them either.

[Sid Squid]

I've just had a thought - how about just leave the whole thing alone?

Paper discs aren't perfect it's true, but they're a whole less ****ed up than the new silliness being proposed.

[embee]

Oh for goodness sake, Sid. You and your revolutionary wild thinking again.

[NTECUK]

And this law won't make a blind bit of difference to them either.
they won't sleep at night :)

[yorkie_chris]

No because they're too busy doing burnouts in tescos car park as usual.

[Owenski]

imo we're massivly behind other countrys on this whole tax insurance mot thing. when I visit my mum in fuertventura and provided I have a valid licence im free to drive their car.

over there they have an annual maintenance check and at that point they pay another sum to insure the vehicle.
because of this there are zero uninsired drivers. partly because a vehicle cannot drive a couple of mile without passing one of their 3 branches of police and any one of those will fine you significantly more than you should have paid for the "mot" and insurance. So its not worth doing!
We need a system like that.
One where the punishment is worse than the risk. i admit we dont have the ratio of police tp public they do but we do have a **** ton of camera systems which could be set to automatically ticket the registered keeper should a car be caught on the road without the required test/insurance.

if you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to object. etc.

of course the only downside is drivers ed has to be part of the curiculum other wise you do increase the chance of people driving who dont have a licence.