Yes.
Everything is as it was before - the only thing that's changed, is when you tax your car, you no longer get a paper tax disc to display in your car windscreen. Plus, if you still have a paper tax disc that's in date, it's now no longer a legal requirement to display it, so you can throw it away if you want.
Everything isn't quite as it was before Gizmonster. When you sell your car you get refunded any full months' tax left on it and the new owner has to tax it from the beginning of the month. In other words, the government gains one month's tax each time a car changes owner.
I attempted to renew online, but when I saw that the payment website was a Beta-version, I gave it a miss. I wasn't prepared to put financial details onto a beta website.
So I tried by phone. Horrendous.
Putting in 16 figure numbers on a phone keypad - first the ref. no. then the debit card number. I won't know if it all went OK until I get my bank statement. It's the Post Office for me next time!
Oh yea forgot about that bit bhg481.
I just assumed that the seller was a garage and they'd cashed the tax in and was simply selling it without tax.
With the old rules, you could actually buy the car taxed and keep the tax; whereas now, the seller has to cash in the tax as it's not transferrable with the sale of the car and like you pointed out, the government gains ...... robbin' fkers !!!!
Moi aussi, hc3461, but I always had the disc as a form of receipt. It's just that one doesn't know how many security holes there are in this new beta-version. In any event, it seemed like one was setting up a direct debit, which I wasn't prepared to do.
Ok I got a lot of answers back but all were relating to the new law but not 1 really answered my Question .. The law is now in place that we must now tax a car as soon as we buy it, we all know that you cant buy a car with any tax...So lets say You buy a car on the 15th of Dec now do you have to tax it from the 1st o Dec thus loosing 2 weeks tax ? thus been ripped of by the government or is there something in the system that lets you pay the last 15 days tax then pay by DD for the next 11 months ?