End of paper tax discs in October 2014 - update


See our earlier NEWS item on paper tax discs. More













Posted: 140613
Discontinuance of the Tax Disc in October 2014
The end of paper tax discs was announced in the last Budget since when the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs (FBHVC) has been seeking clarifications from DVLA on a number of concerns. In its latest newsletter the FBHVC says the "DVLA have currently not reacted to our comments on their proposal that on any sale of a vehicle with an unexpired tax disc, the VED registration expires and a new one has to be sought". The proposal says the existing VED licence (even if it is for a Historic Vehicle and no actual VED is payable) will expire when the Secretary of State is notified of the change of keeper - that is when DVLA receives the V5C in Swansea. Neither buyer nor seller will know exactly when that is. But the seller, because of Continuous Insurance, will need to keep his insurance in place on the vehicle he or she has sold until they are sure the licence has lapsed. The buyer will presumably not be able to get a new licence until the old one has lapsed but will need to have put insurance in place to use the vehicle after sale.

Perhaps worse, on a vehicle in respect of which VED is payable, although the seller will be able to claim a rebate on any existing VED, he will not get refund of that part of the month's VED in which the sale occurs. Meanwhile the buyer
will immediately have to apply for a licence. This seems to have the effect that some VED will be paid twice over. This looks wrong in principle. The Federation is also concerned that DVLA do not appear to be planning for an owner to possess any actual evidence of his own. DVLA seem to consider that being on their database is enough. We are concerned that others, especially abroad, may wish to see some evidence that the vehicle is licensed, even if only a print of a computer record, and will not be willing to simply be told to visit the DVLA website.

The FBHVC report ends by saying "so far DVLA have not explained how, if at all, these problems are to be dealt with. The Federation will keep asking".
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