Declaring SORN

[Northern_Mike]

How are you supposed to tax it in your own name if you're not the registered keeper?

I reckon you'll find you may be able to..

My C1 was pre-taxed when I collected it so there must be a way...

Well, yes, you can walk into a post office now with a new keepers slip and valid cert of insurance/MOT and tax a car.

What if it's weekend when the PO (or Tesco, as has been suggested) is shut, and/or you use an insurance company that won't send you PDF copies of the documents by email? The MID database doesn't update instantly when you insure a different car on your policy. I

[CitroJim]

Plus the changes only are supposed to come in in October.

And that's a long time in politics/government. Anything could happen between then and now.

[addo]

I think declaring SORN needs more flamboyance. Merely filling in an online form is a trifle dull. People should have to video record their unique declaration (song, rhyme, mime, whatever) and upload to YT, where the DVLA will sit in judgement.

[CitroJim]

I like it Adam Declaring SORN is not very dramatic at all...

[handyman]

Is this not just another conniving way for government to rob us by another indirect 'tax' ? They seem to still see the motoring public as a gullible idiot to be milked like a cash cow . I'd like to see all these little bureaucrats that think up these nasty schemes lined up against the wall, come the revolution........

Worst of it is, we all accept these backdoor impositions without protest , much of the legislation being passed through government during the quiet periods when nobody is looking.

Bottom line is, if the car ain't insured, you cant have it taxed, so you need to send it back for a refund & like all dodgy b'stards, they take their cut. Declaring SORN means the car is no longer taxed.

Why they dont see sense & put the VED on the MOT or as an added tax on fuel?

As Mike stated, drivers that dont respect the law will drive anyway, taxed or not, insured or not.

H

[handyman]

No Addo, dont start giving the stupid b'stards ideas. They already sit in judgement on us, even though they are 'public servants', my arse!

H

[Northern_Mike]

Bottom line is, if the car ain't insured, you cant have it taxed, so you need to send it back for a refund & like all dodgy b'stards, they take their cut. Declaring SORN means the car is no longer taxed.

This is wrong. You CAN have it taxed, but you have to declare SORN and keep it off the road. You might as well cash in the tax, but you don't have to by law. As I said to Jim, if I were selling a car shortly, I'd leave the tax on it to make it more convenient for the buyer to collect it - let's face it, who apart from the retired and unemployed buys a secondhand car from a private seller during post office opening hours? I'm not sure I *ever* have done, despite owning 140+ motors!

[CitroJim]

Why they dont see sense & put the VED on the MOT or as an added tax on fuel?

It'll happen soon. All this shenanigans and the abolition of the tax disc is just a warm-up to the big event...

I say bring it on as soon as possible. I have a tax-free car but even if it's on petrol I’ll still pay the best part of naff-all. The Xantias are just toys now so I can stand being shafted at the pumps for the pleasure they give...

Another reason VED will soon be on fuel is now that so many cars are either free of VED or in very low bands the exchequer is beginning to hurt badly and putting VED on fuel neatly solves his problem.

If I were a betting man I'd place one but I fear the odds would be short...

[addo]

They abolished the labels here (our tax disc equivalent) yet there are SFA cameras to detect unpaid vehicles. I seriously couldn't care less; I'm insured and if anything happens to me courtesy of a third party, it's up to my insurer to sort out with them an arrangement - I still get taken care of.

Fuel's jumping up here, too. I won't be surprised if premium tops $2/litre by year's end.

[handyman]

Hate to disprove you, Mike, but SWMBOs Xantia had a couple of months of tax on it when I parked it up & declared SORN and transfered the insurance to the Diesel Donkey. It didn't take DVLA too long to write to me to say I had to send back the old tax disc forthwith & sooner than that, which had run out by then.

You MIGHT be right, but I know who I'd believe.

H

[Northern_Mike]

Well, I got that info from the DVLA website...

They *will* send you a Insurance Advisory Letter once they realise it's no longer insured, but there is no legal requirement to send the tax back. I've had a couple of these, I can't remember the wording but I think it only suggests you can send the tax back rather than demands that you do.

[handyman]

All I can say is dont believe everything you read.

H

[wurlycorner]

Is this not just another conniving way for government to rob us by another indirect 'tax'

I think the main reason is getting rid of cost of the paper system, but yes if things stay as they are, an upshot of it will be that every time a car is sold the government will generate a months worth of additional vehicle license duty revenue;
The seller can only claim back complete months worth, so unless the car is sold on 30th/31st, they will lose up to a months remaining tax.
If the car is sold on 30th/31st and the new owner wants to collect/tax the car that day, they will have to fork out for a full months tax that they won't be using (they will only get 1 days worth).

That's if the system doesn't change, of course - I suspect this will all become an on-line thing where it calculates by the day, however... Not sure how that will work with the inaccuracies/lags in the insurance industry database etc. though.

[handyman]

Iain, you seem to have great faith in the inept bureaucracy that bedevils us poor plebs. If a government department can screw us for a few more pennies it surely will, even though many of the systems we use are already paid for via the Treasury. Now who put the money into the Treasury, via taxation?

I bet there must be many petty bureaucrats thinking up dastardly schemes to skin us all a bit more. No doubt, they'll receive a handsome bonus, of our money, for its implementation.

H

[CitroJim]

Handyman, you old cynic you!!!