Road fund licence back door tax scam
Discussion
Hedgerley said:
How would you feel if next month HMRC took twice the normal amount of income tax off you? Or you had to pay twice the amount of VAT for the fuel you buy for a month? I think the excuse of 'our systems can't handle it' is pretty lame in this case.
Irrelevant analogy. This particular scenario only occurs if you happen to sell a car and buy a new one part way into a month as opposed to near the end. Unless you are constantly buying and selling cars then this is a trivial and mostly avoidable issue.perhaps a point we are missing is that the gov will now make money on 'every' car sale as far as the refund of the 'whole' months is concerned if you are a seller, or the loss to the buyer if he has to tax a car at the end of a month for which he pays but has never driven....and they pocket the part used months both ways....on every used car sale....from both the buyer and the seller
when you sold a car before you sold it with the tax probably.....you probably fudge factored it in your total selling price....or even calculated that this is X pounds for car + Y pounds for the car tax....which you could calculate as a cost per day remaining if you wished....or you took it out and got the remaining whole months refunded yourself... but unless you opted to get a refund on your tax you had the option to calculate to the day how much it was worth on top of the price of the car you were selling.....and the buyer knew to the day what the tax worth as part of the buying price.
The system is now all data base controlled and they could just as easily have dispensed with the beginning an end of months tag and simply worked it for 6 or 12.... or as a value from the day purchased to the day sold
The use of months as a counter was only valid when they had to produce 12 differing colour recognisable discs
The continuing use of months as a marker is no longer relevant with this new system....but it will make money for the gov out of everyone of us for every used car sale and purchase that we make
The new system allows the gov to have another finger in your pocket
when you sold a car before you sold it with the tax probably.....you probably fudge factored it in your total selling price....or even calculated that this is X pounds for car + Y pounds for the car tax....which you could calculate as a cost per day remaining if you wished....or you took it out and got the remaining whole months refunded yourself... but unless you opted to get a refund on your tax you had the option to calculate to the day how much it was worth on top of the price of the car you were selling.....and the buyer knew to the day what the tax worth as part of the buying price.
The system is now all data base controlled and they could just as easily have dispensed with the beginning an end of months tag and simply worked it for 6 or 12.... or as a value from the day purchased to the day sold
The use of months as a counter was only valid when they had to produce 12 differing colour recognisable discs
The continuing use of months as a marker is no longer relevant with this new system....but it will make money for the gov out of everyone of us for every used car sale and purchase that we make
The new system allows the gov to have another finger in your pocket
xxxscimitarxxx said:
perhaps a point we are missing is that the gov will now make money on 'every' car sale as far as the refund of the 'whole' months is concerned if you are a seller, or the loss to the buyer if he has to tax a car at the end of a month for which he pays but has never driven....and they pocket the part used months both ways....on every used car sale....from both the buyer and the seller
This has always been the case when buying VED or having it refunded, it's just that it is now mandatory to do so. Unless you are constantly buying and selling cars then it will have negligible impact for most people, and even then any loss can be minimised by buying or refunding the VED at the end or start of the month if possible.Mr2Mike said:
This has always been the case when buying VED or having it refunded, it's just that it is now mandatory to do so. Unless you are constantly buying and selling cars then it will have negligible impact for most people, and even then any loss can be minimised by buying or refunding the VED at the end or start of the month if possible.
But it hasn't, you could charge the outstanding ved to the next owner and get pretty much the whole value back or use it as a bargaining chip. I've never in 20 odd years of driving sent off for a refund. Now you will lose an amount of ved whereas before you might not. Plus the gov gets double bubble on cars bought and sold mid month.With these feet said:
But it hasn't, you could charge the outstanding ved to the next owner and get pretty much the whole value back or use it as a bargaining chip. I've never in 20 odd years of driving sent off for a refund. Now you will lose an amount of ved whereas before you might not. Plus the gov gets double bubble on cars bought and sold mid month.
This.It is a scam and there's no reason it shouldn't be sorted out. The answer is simple as has already been suggested - only refunding in whole months in now an anachronism and we should be doing it daily.
As something of an analogy, I switched phone/internet provider not too long ago and both old and new provider tried to charge me an overlap in whole months. I sorted it out, but out of interest I spoke to Ofcom afterwards and they confirmed that it wasn't an acceptable way for them to have behaved. If I'd rolled over and paid it, it would only have been an extra ten quid, but ten free quid every time a consumer switches would be a nice little money-for-nothing earner for the industry. If DVLA was a privatised, regulated organisation I'd be surprised if they were allowed to get away with this double bubble stuff.
Having said that, ditching paper discs was always going to be a major change for the organisation. I think it would have been a mistake to require them to simultaneously implement another major change and move from monthly to daily charging. That would have just ended up in a right balls up with delay and confusion all round. But now they've made one of those changes, there's no excuse for the other not to be on their to do list.
With these feet said:
But it hasn't,
But it has. Read what I said. Refunding and buying VED has only ever been possible in one month increments so it has always lost you money unless done at the end/beginning of the month.It's an annoyance I agree, but not exactly difficult to minimise any losses with a bit of effort and planning.
Edited by Mr2Mike on Wednesday 19th November 16:47
Mr2Mike said:
With these feet said:
But it hasn't,
But it has. Read what I said. Refunding and buying VED has only ever been possible in one month increments so it has always lost you money unless done at the end/beginning of the month.It's an annoyance I agree, but not exactly difficult to minimise any losses with a bit of effort and planning.
Edited by Mr2Mike on Wednesday 19th November 16:47
With these feet said:
Mr2Mike said:
With these feet said:
But it hasn't,
But it has. Read what I said. Refunding and buying VED has only ever been possible in one month increments so it has always lost you money unless done at the end/beginning of the month.It's an annoyance I agree, but not exactly difficult to minimise any losses with a bit of effort and planning.
Edited by Mr2Mike on Wednesday 19th November 16:47
Mr2Mike said:
Refunding and buying VED has only ever been possible in one month increments so it has always lost you money unless done at the end/beginning of the month.
And this is something that the "Oooh, it should be easy to do it daily!" brigade forget. The IT almost certainly doesn't "do" daily. It is almost certainly entirely monthly-based. Factor in the costs and timescales of redeveloping, testing, implementing, bug-fixing new VED IT...It's somewhat surprising that there isn't also an admin fee for making changes, like there often is with insurance.
I imagine over time they might move to a daily system. It would be better to drop VED altogether and put it on fuel, but adding 20p VED to each litre of fuel probably costs which ever Government does it the next election.
I imagine over time they might move to a daily system. It would be better to drop VED altogether and put it on fuel, but adding 20p VED to each litre of fuel probably costs which ever Government does it the next election.
Sheepshanks said:
It's somewhat surprising that there isn't also an admin fee for making changes, like there often is with insurance.
I imagine over time they might move to a daily system. It would be better to drop VED altogether and put it on fuel, but adding 20p VED to each litre of fuel probably costs which ever Government does it the next election.
Why is it a surprise? Its a tax that incorporates the collection costs in it.I imagine over time they might move to a daily system. It would be better to drop VED altogether and put it on fuel, but adding 20p VED to each litre of fuel probably costs which ever Government does it the next election.
The tax goes to central government.
I'm not arguing over whole month refunds its the fact you are forced to surrender the ved when you sell where you werent before. Therefore you sell a car with just under a month ved before the change and the buyer gets that month, now the taxman gets 2 months. It's not how its always been now is it?
TooMany2cvs said:
And this is something that the "Oooh, it should be easy to do it daily!" brigade forget. The IT almost certainly doesn't "do" daily. It is almost certainly entirely monthly-based. Factor in the costs and timescales of redeveloping, testing, implementing, bug-fixing new VED IT...
...and you have an extremely good reason not to have required DVLA to move from monthly to daily charging simultaneously with getting rid of paper discs (i.e. an extremely good reason why the double bubble problem exists right now). It's not a good reason for the double bubble problem continuing to exist indefinitely though.TooMany2cvs said:
And this is something that the "Oooh, it should be easy to do it daily!" brigade forget. The IT almost certainly doesn't "do" daily. It is almost certainly entirely monthly-based. Factor in the costs and timescales of redeveloping, testing, implementing, bug-fixing new VED IT...
According to the various Q&A's the DVLA sent out to trade users they could do it, their reply when questioned was that it is a decision of HM Treasury not theirs and they need to be told to do it.Debaser said:
They should scrap it / add it to fuel.
Adding it to fuel is the obvious answer - the more you drive the more you pay...BUT - is there anyone here who trusts the Government to do this in a fair manner, and not use it as another excuse to shovel more money into the Treasury? With these feet said:
You've never HAD to return the tax. Now you do. Not transfer, trade , swap or gift. Yes I agree the part refund has always been about but you now have no choice.
And how many times have you sold a car and the buyer has given you ALL the value of the road tax INCLUDING the current month that you couldnt reclaim anyway?Graham said:
daemon said:
Yes, because that will help our haulage industry. 
which could easily be sorted with a tax rebate for the haulage industry...And what happens foreign lorries when they're here? How would they get a rebate? Or Lorries from the south of ireland coming onto the mainland or into the north?
And all this to avoid somebody whinging about having to tax their car mid month
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