Vehicle Tax Changes Imminent – What You Need to Know

With changes surrounding the acquisition and display of vehicle tax coming into effect very shortly (1st October 2014), here's a quick rundown of the new regulations you should be aware of.

What's Changing?

According to the Gov.uk website, vehicle owners will no longer be required to display a tax disc in their window, nor will they be provided with one upon renewal. Whilst good news for lazy or forgetful motorists, we can kiss goodbye to the 'fancy-tax-disc-holder' aftermarket suppliers, and it does mean I can no-longer play the 'can I remove the tax disc from along the perforated paper without ripping it' game that I so often enjoyed.

Tax checks will now solely and regularly be performed electronically from numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras, so don't take this as an excuse to 'conveniently forget' to tax your car. They're watching you...

On a more serious note, and one that I along with many, many other motorists aren't too fond of, the DVLA are also changing how vehicle tax is managed during the sale of a vehicle.

You can no longer sell a vehicle with any remaining tax.

Upon the sale of a vehicle you own, you must inform the DVLA who will then automatically refund any whole remaining months of vehicle Tax. I emphasise the word 'whole' here, seeing as even if you you have 30 days tax remaining on a 31 day month, you won't be refunded for that month. Bastards.

This obviously means when buying a used vehicle, you'll have to shell out even more to tax the damn thing. And now you won't even get a bit of paper to show for it! But don't worry, there's a new Direct-Debit service to pay your tax bill, so they can whack on a few additional charges and squeeze a few more quid out of you every month (from 1st November 2014).

Just more blatant attempts to line the pockets of the fat cats. But I digress, this is the future of motoring ladies and gentlemen - it's only ever going to get more expensive.