On the Road Again!

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 n...

I was intending to have a ride out on Sunday - June 1st. The bike was SORN'd in May. As the tax ran out at the end of April and I wasn't going to have any opportunity to ride it, so rather than pay for a month road tax, I put it on SORN. I did this over the Internet and printed the receipt. To use the bike on Sunday June 1st I needed to tax the bike to make it legal, How? The post office seemed keen on selling me a disc that would start on May 1st, even though it was the 31st already. I checked online, entered the number off the log book plus the reg number and again I was offered tax from the 1st May. I gave up and sent them an email to say it was ridiculous in this instance that you can't renew online for the Sunday as the starting date. Not had a reply yet. On Sunday morning I logged on again and lo and behold the date had changed to June 1st. SO I renewed. Okay it costs a few quid for them to run the service and whilst it might seem a rip off considering you are p...