The tax disc has not been in implemented since October 2014 and this has led to a rapid increase of the amount of vehicles which are untaxed. Experts did warn that getting rid of the tax discs which came into effect in 1921 would lead bother driver confusion and more tax evasion, the amount paid by British motorist fell by £223million in the 6 months after the tax disc was scrapped.
Between October 2014 and March 2015 £2.7billion of Vehicle Exercise Duty was paid to the DVLA, according to “Freedom of Information requested by the Financial Times”.This is a decrease from April-September 2014 where £3.2billion was collected. This RAC estimated that the demolish of the tax disc would cost the UK an estimated £167 million a year as drivers as more motorist would be less willing to pay.
One of the biggest changes that have happened to the tax disc is that tax can no longer be transferred from the old owner of the car to the new owner. So this means that sellers must cancel their car tax and buyers of used cars must then renew it as soon as they have brought the car. The RAC has also said this has led to more misunderstandings as there have been reports of drivers being fined for untaxed vehicles within 1 day of purchasing the vehicle. This then further convoluted by the new system as it only allows drivers to pay for car tax from the start of each month, whereas for those who are selling a car only get the remain full months refunded. An example of this is:
“If someone buys a used car on the 28th of the month, they must pay the full month’s car tax. Meanwhile, if someone sells a car on the 2nd of the month, they cannot reclaim the tax for the following 29 days, only the remaining full months after that.”
The chief executive of the DVLA Oliver Morley told the Financial Times, “Almost 99 per cent of all vehicles on the road are correctly taxed: that’s around £6bn in vehicle tax passed to the Treasury every year”. The DVLA do write to the keepers of the vehicle in the UK to remind them once there taxi is due. As well as having a range of ways to pay such as direct debit or paying online. They also have debt collection agencies to enforce that tax is paid. The Department for Transport, estimated that around 1.5% of cars that are on the road are not taxed, which is a sharp increase from 0.6% in 2013. They have said that this increase was probably due to the drastic changed to the vehicle licensing system.
Some Velologist (a person who really likes tax discs) grieved the death of the tax discs. It has also been noticed that some “tax discs were selling for tidy sums on online marketplaces such as eBay.”