Said Before On Here.

[TWR]

Apart from the extra cost, & yes we do have A.N.P.R. If a disk alike the Tax Disk was Issued by the Insurer, that way it would be seen by any member of the public / Traffic Warden & dealt with, UniNsured cars according to the Mirror today states there are million still without Insurance! Your Views>

[bednobs]

i have never understood why we need tax discs anyway - if it's all on a computer (and it is) why do we need the paper? and why do they make it so damn hard to get it out of the perforations?

[Hopkirk]

You couldn't drive away a car that you had just bought, and insured over the phone, you would have to wait for snail mail to deliver the disc.

Those who were uninsured could easily knock up a convincing fake on their computer, and stick it in the windscreen.

The government is thinking of going the opposite way, and getting rid of the need to display a tax disc.

[factor-fiction]

I would prefer to see the tax disk replaced by a higher tax on petrol so no-one can avoid it.

I agree that it's a problem and your solution needs to be considered.

One problem I see is that insurers already have problems with people taking out a policy on instalments and then canceling the DD and not returning their policy documents. These people would just keep their insurance/tax disc too.

[jake-the-peg]

Glaringly obvious problem with that.

I apply for insurance on monthly terms and get disk

put disk on car

stop paying monthly terms


Computer systems don't work either - My nephew is Irish, bought a car over here insured it perfectly legally with an Irish insurer and we've only just stopped getting the threatening letters months after sending them a copy of the insurance certificate

[VHG]

>>>I would prefer to see the tax disk replaced by a higher tax on petrol so no-one can avoid it.

Transferring cost to petrol would just make petrol more expensive and encourage more people to steal it, use pink diesel (for farm vehicles), or avoid the petrol tax in some other way.

Government taxes are spread across hundreds of things, and road tax is one of them, and they are not going to give it up voluntarily.

[Hopkirk]

More and more cars are getting exempt from road tax now, by getting cleaner and cleaner engines.

You can now buy Ford Fiestas and Focuses with petrol engines that are zero road tax.

[New Judge]

Yes for the moment. But there are already rumblings that a drop in revenue (because, strangely, motorists have heeded the call to "go green" - not because they are concerned for the environment but because it saves them money) will have to be reversed. This may mean that the number of low or zero rated vehicles will have to be reviewed.

[jake-the-peg]

Not sure that'll happen NJ

It would be rather perverse if it did - after all the whole point of raising taxes on fuel andengine size was precisely to provoke this behaviour in consumers.

To backtrack on the policy as soon as it started to work would be a bit odd don't you think?

[jno]

well, diesel used to be cheaper than petrol to encourage people to use it, didn't it, jake? And now it's not. Or am I misremembering?

[Baldric]

Hopkirk,
They still need a tax disc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Excise_Duty#Exempt_vehicles

[New Judge]

Yes it would be odd, jake. But politicians do odd things, especially where other people's money is concerned.

I definitely saw an article a couple of months back which gave details of the "lost" revenue that has followed since the reduction in Duty for less polluting cars. The article went on to say that ways must be found to recover this loss - including possibly increasing Duty on such cars. It gave me the impression that the idea the reduction was somewhat obscure to put it politely.

[jake-the-peg]

Ah careful with such articles

Was the opinion that the lost revenue had to be recovered from the Government or opinion from the journalist added on to spice up the story a bit - a common piece of journalistic practice.

We've not seen this behaviour from Government in cigarette taxes for instance - If anything as the number of smokers come down the taxation has gone up!

[SpikeyBush]

I have to have three discs in my windscreen here. Tax, insurance and NCT (National Car Test. like MoT in the UK). Years ago these would be difficult to forge, especially if your only tools were a sheep dog and a Massey Fergusson tractor. Nowadays anyone can do up Mickey Mouse discs and seeing as the Gardai have entered the 21st century and have databases and ANPR there is no need to have bits of paper clogging up your windscreen. Get rid of them. Now.