Oi! DVLA! No!

the second one :)

Good idea, Mr Blair. We should also have a computer tax. Phone tax.

And a tax tax. No, that's been done.

because DVLA has to keep a record of it and that costs money, not much but a little. If your car is registered, it's on the DVLA database.

But the record is made when the car is new, so why should there be a charge every year?

Why do they *have* to keep a record of it? Surely a database of cars *not* currently taxed would do exactly the same job?

Peter

-- "The truth is working in television is not very glamorous at all. I just go home on my own at night and sit alone and eat crisps."

The DVLA already has a record of it. It has a record of all cars and the expiry of your RFL disc. You're surely not suggesting that the DVLA actually deserve more money from the motorist for doing the job they're funded to do?

Richard

First apologies for misreading the original post.

However, I'm rather a believer that a full track should be kept of all cars until they are scrapped. If this means paying a few pounds to cover the admin, I can't see the harm in that. It's not even the cost of a can of oil, for goodness sake.

But we're not talking about cars you use, but about those not in use. Lying around.

Taking that to it's logical conclusion means you'd not pay fuel tax on your classic - after all it's only a hobby.

Virtually no tax is fire walled to be spent on only what it's raised from. Just about the only one is the TV licence. Doesn't stop complaints about that either.

Well, I haven't got kids. Why should I pay to educate others? This argument runs and runs. I smoke. Why isn't that taxation used to the benefit of smokers? (and smoking costs the nation *nothing* like the amount it raises in tax.)

Then charge a fee when it changes hands. SORN is not a registration issue. They may be proposing a fee of a few pounds, but it's free to be increased at any time.

SORN is, fundamentally, assuming guilt before an offence has been committed. Unless you actually take your unlicensed car on the public road, you are doing nothing wrong, other than breaking a manufactured law; I can understand the law that you should pay your VED before taking a car on the public road, but an untaxed car off the road is just property. It is, frankly, none of their business. Why don't they keep track of your car's current location with GPS and some sort of black box?

When the car changes hands, it is kept track of. Not filling out the V5 is an offence.

Richard

Too bloody right!

In article ,=20 snipped-for-privacy@blue-nopressedmeat-yonder.co.uk spouted forth into=20 uk.rec.cars.modifications...

I'm still waiting for the V5C for the Celica. I've mailed the vehicles section of the DVLA, got the two automated=20 thankyous and that is has been passed to a human. Now that human has=20 ignored it.

--=20 Carl Robson "Sorry Sir the meatballs are orf" (The poster formerly known as Skodapilot)

how many of us pay stupidity tax? I used to, then I stopped playing the lotto :)

Yeah, me too! I played from my 16th birthday for about 6 months or so - started with a lucky dip and used the same numbers each week, then one day forgot to buy a ticket, checked if my numbers came up, and they didn't, so I saved a pound. I consider it an almost guaranteed way to win a pound every week :-)

Peter

-- "The truth is working in television is not very glamorous at all. I just go home on my own at night and sit alone and eat crisps."

and whats more, you only have to win a few times a year to pay for the tax dvla thing :)

In message , snipped-for-privacy@quickwatchsales.com writes

Tax the MPs!

they repealed the law (well they went as far as passing it before they repealed it) it was called daylight tax and was levied on the amount of windows your residence had quite true they passed the law and then though "hang on, our big country mansions have lots of windows so we'd better think about this again" this was way back in the early yokel days of kings and stuff like that in the 18 or 1700's

It arrived. Whoohoo. It's legit.

I'm not sure why we're taxing cars full stop - the damage done to the roads, the environment and the roadspace occupied is directly proportional to the size/weight of the vehicle and how many miles you drive, which are proportional to the amount of fuel you use. Its more cost-effective to abolish VED for passenger vehicles (but still maintain records of the keepers) and add tax to the fuel to cover the drop in VED than it is to pay a whole troop of extra-specially incompetant civil-servants to muddle through extracting £160 from each motorist and spending £100 to do so.

The DVLA have no right to start chargign for anything until they can demonstrate that they are providing a service. 6 weeks to process a change in engine capacity from 2286cc to 1994cc is not a service. 6 weeks to send me the V5 for my new car is not a service.

The solution to the £4.50 charge is to ignore the DVLA and drive unregistered but insured and MOTed vehicles until such a time as the DVLA and the whole vehicle registration/taxation system are re-organised. You can't take 20 million people to court overnight and its certainly not worth trying it for the sake of £4.50...

As an aside - whenever ringing the DVLA say you speak welsh. This "I speak welsh" is the button you need to press for "The DVLA has f**ked up and I need to speak to a person not an answering machine". In my experience the welsh bods are extremely helpful, and will tell you which department code to put on the envelope such that it goes straight to the proper area (say, engine number changes), thus savingthe two weeks it takes for teh DVLA to sort and redistribute its internal mail.

Also - the DVLA will keep your details as the registered keeper even when you have "scrapped" the car, just noting that you are the registered keeper but have scrapped it. You then need to contact them AGAIN to have your personal details removed from file. Its a good idea to do this, because should the vehicle ever turn up again (and your name is still the registered keeper), or its reg no/VIN plate etc, then you will be deemed responsible for it.

Agreed.

The entire car-tax system is insane.

It should be abolished. Then they could add, let's say 5% (or whatever it would need to be), to the current fuel tax to replace the income they've just removed.

Net result - you pay more tax if you drive more, and you pay less tax if you're economical, and you cannot avoid the tax - which, funnily enough, is EXACTLY what they want to happen !

On top of that, they save a BUCKETLOAD of money, because they no longer need to administer car-tax !

So why don't they do it ?

For a start, you'd still have to maintain a database of who owns what. So any administrative savings would be tiny. The act of 'taxing' a car also is an annual check that it has valid insurance, MOT etc. And that the car is registered correctly.