Paying your dues

These are the front page News Items. Only Club members can add news items to this forum.
Locked
deshollier
Deceased
Posts: 407
Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2005 5:02 pm
Location: SURREY UK

Paying your dues

Post by deshollier »

LONDON (Reuters) - Almost four in 10 motorcyclists dodge paying road tax, putting the system at risk of becoming a "complete laughing stock," a committee of MPs said on Tuesday.

A report by the Public Accounts Committee found that five percent of all road users avoided paying the Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) in 2006, up from 3.6 percent the year before, at a cost to the taxpayer of 214 million pounds.

Among motorcyclists that figure soared to 38 percent, an increase of 8 percent from 2005.

The DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) now admits it will not hit its target of reducing the overall evasion rate to 2.5 percent by December 2007, the report said.

"Motorists and motorcyclists who refuse to pay road tax are stealing from law-abiding taxpayers and unlicensed cars are often associated with other forms of crime," said committee chairman Edward Leigh.

"And yet the Department for Transport (DoT) and the DVLA are losing ground in their fight against VED evasion."

The MPs said the effectiveness of the current enforcement regime is questionable and called for tough new measures to target offenders.

They suggested that in future motorcyclists who dodge tax should have their bikes impounded and have penalty points put on their licenses.

Persistent offenders should also be targeted before their tax is due for renewal to reduce repeat offending.

"If the DVLA's motorcycle enforcement regime is not to be a complete laughing stock, then the Agency and the Department must make the most of new powers ... and strongly consider more severe measures," Leigh said.

"Large parts of the biking community are cocking a snook at the law."

User avatar
Circlip
Posts: 485
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:12 am
Location: Thailand THAILAND

Paying your dues

Post by Circlip »

I had a motorcycle in England once a Kawasaki Ke 125 I had it for about 3 years. It just sat at the back of the garage. On one occasion only, one lovely evening in summer I took it out and onto the river bank miles away from anyone under the pylons. I think thats illegal now. Anyway maybe I was calculated as being one of the 38%.

Maybe their calculations need re-calibrating
ie, existence of bike = revenue maybe a better figure would result from use of bike =revenue instead of calling it evasion.
User avatar
Merlin
Member
Posts: 3683
Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2001 12:00 am
Location: BLACKPOOL UK

Paying your dues

Post by Merlin »

Why just pick on us,if you care to look on our traveling community vehicles most are either not taxed or have another vehicles tax disk showing.Before you ask yes I have informed the authorities with no success.
Chemists do it with test tubes
poplargreg
Member
Posts: 894
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:45 pm
Location: HEREFORDSHIRE UK
Contact:

Paying your dues

Post by poplargreg »

More worrying is the large number of migrant workers, Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian in this area (Herefordshire) who drive (often when drunk and frequently on the wrong side of the road) on their own country's licence plates. This renders them effectively untraceable.

They don't pay road tax or have to submit to an MOT and I suspect many don't have insurance cover either.

Our local newspaper recently reported that in the last year, 25% of serious accidents had involved migrant workers
User avatar
crawsue
Posts: 1180
Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2005 1:00 am
Location: GLASGOW UK

Paying your dues

Post by crawsue »

This topic is about to be discussed on Jeremy Vine's BBC radio 2 show.
Hard work never killed anyone.....but why take the risk?
Groily
Member
Posts: 2151
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2002 1:00 am
Location: NORMANDIE FRANCE

Paying your dues

Post by Groily »

Another consequence of insufferable bureaucracy. The real reason for VED seems to me to be to impose one more control on the PBM (Poor Bloody Motorist). You live in a triangulated and increasingly-computerised world of road tax (unfair), test (not worth the paper it's printed on and still available in the pub I understand) and insurance (crucial, obviously), larded by SORN (who he?) and no doubt other limitations on the law abiding citizen's (sorry, subject's) right to manage his own chattels as he will. I assume that the person who fails to pay his excise duty, also ignores the need for insurance which presumably doesn't cover illegally operated vehicles, and often has an unroadworthy object to boot?
The proper approach, for the safety of all and for fairness' sake, is to enforce the display of valid insurance and MOT or equivalent on the vehicle, and substitute VED by either reasonable road charging or a very small levy on fuel duty. That way, use determines the cost, rather than the fixed costs impoverishing even he who seldom ventures out. If I lived in the UK and had to pay VED on all my toys, I'd be paying well over a thousand quid a year without turning a wheel. As it is, in surrender-monkey France, classic vehicles benefit from:
a) very reasonable basic insurance (you can pay for bells and whistles and agreed values and all that but I don't, even for 4-wheelers that are actually quite expensive to mend), b) a regime that exempts all motorcycles, even moderns, from MOTs. (Classic cars need one inspection, to get them registered); and c) there has not been a tax disc since 2001. It was just abolished as a waste of space.
But, there are road tolls for those who choose the autoroutes - not me, or not on old toys anyway. They were increased when the 'vignette' (tax disc) was scrapped. And the construction and use regs or equivalent are a matter of importance, should you be daft enough to have a prang for the want of brakes, lights, etc.
This is much fairer, because you pay as you go rather than for sitting in the garage, and it encourages the preservation of old vehicles.
I believe certain parts of Scandinavia (Norway?) also operate a sensible regime.
Too much to hope for in the land of my birth I fear, which is in the hands of people who've never mastered a lawn-mower let alone a machine of the marque. Luckily, I'm very happy where I am. Groily
ajsfr
Deceased
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Dec 24, 2002 12:00 am
Location: CALVADOS FRANCE

Paying your dues

Post by ajsfr »

Hello Bill,
Pourvu que ça dure...
(As long as it lasts)
But the bureaucrats are working hard...
Groily
Member
Posts: 2151
Joined: Thu Jul 04, 2002 1:00 am
Location: NORMANDIE FRANCE

Paying your dues

Post by Groily »

Je sais, mon ami, je sais. . . je touche du bois pour l'avenir bien que je comprenne le risque de changement facheux . . . or
'I know and I'm touching wood although I've sussed there's the risk of unwelcome change'.

Already been changes re classic 4-wheelers this year, and maybe modern bikes will be subject to an MOT before long (not a bad idea probably although there are many who'd shoot me for saying that) . . . hope the old 'uns will remain exempt though. How much energy can a bureaucrat have? . . . don't answer! Groily
Locked