Pepé Tax

Every year we have to pay a tax to the Government to be able to use our vehicles on the road. Over the years it has had a few different names and since the 1930's hasn't been spent on the roads! It simply goes in the Government's coffers to spend where they like.

In a pandemic we are expecting the huge financial burden to be spread across taxation, both directly like income tax and of course, indirectly on things like purchases and that includes petrol and the vehicle tax. 

The Government still calls it "Vehicle Tax" although loads of pedants will try and make out it is an emissions tax.  It is vehicle tax that used to be based on the engine capacity of the vehicle and vehicle type. Now it is based on bands depending on the noxious emissions your vehicle pumps out.

As Pepé is currently untaxed and in the garage, I won't have the reminder form V11 sent to me from the licencing agency. I will have to login to the vehicle tax website and use the unique vehicle number on my V5C, what we call the logbook instead.

We no longer display a disc in the car or on the bike to show the expiry date of the vehicle tax. At one time the vehicle was taxed and that stayed with it until it ran out.  If you sold the vehicle, the tax went with it.  Then in a brain storm of incredible money grabbing madness they made the tax more personal.

Why money grabbing? For example.  I tax Pepé from March 1st 2021 for a year. This expires February 28th 2022.  On June 10th I sell the bike.  I send off the change of ownership to the DVLA. They then refund me any unused months of tax. Unused. So I lose the tax for the whole of June.

The new owner has to tax the bike. His tax runs from June 1st.  He pays for ten days he hasn't had the bike.  I pay for 20 days I've not had it but we both end up paying for June.  Under the old system the new owner would not have to tax it until March 1st 2022. Whilst this might not sound all that bad for one vehicle. Think of how many vehicles are traded every day? Every year? It all adds up.