It’s time the UK ditched tax disc
I’m going to start with a couple questions, the reasons for these will become obvious.
Would you be comfortable driving your new car without a tax disc?
Did you know that the new DVLA new car registration process makes driving without a tax disc quite probable?
This situation is a result of a commendably good idea to modernise and streamline the DVLA road tax process for leasing firms. Firms such as us who need to register and tax a great many vehicles each week via our supplying dealers.
Let me briefly explain the new system and what it replaced: Before this system was introduced, a dealer could tax a new vehicle via their local Post Office or DVLA regional office. To save money & reduce disruption at the Post Office counters DVLA have this year closed many of its regional offices and has taken the registration burden for all new cars and un-plated LCV’s in house.
As such all new registrations have been centralised with the DVLA head office in Swansea and all tax discs are now sent out from there. It’s called the Automated First Registration and Licensing (AFRL) system and was introduced on 22 July.
In theory it’s a good plan. It gets rid of bureaucracy, saves cost and cuts the instance of tax disc fraud.
But and there is a big But… it can take UP to 14 working days for the DVLA to process the paperwork. to compound this delay It also transpires that the tax discs are being sent out in 2nd class post with no guarantee of when they will arrive with the dealer. This creates a major dilemma for us! Do we delay delivery and ask our customer to wait an unknown period of time for the tax disc to arrive? Or do we deliver a car without a tax disc? Either way we look inefficient, it’s the classic no win situation. If you are trying to transfer a cherished plate I understand it’s even worse, we are told the DVLA are still clearing plate transfers from June!
So where do we stand from a legal of point of view when driving a car without a tax disc?
DVLA says a car can be driven 14 days from the date of first registration without a tax disc. But would you feel comfortable driving around for a fortnight without a tax disc? And once the tax disc has been delivered to the dealer, it then has to be sent on to the driver, possibly via a fleet admin department so it is quite possible the delay might extend beyond the 14 days of grace. Unfortunately I can’t get a definitive answer what the position would be n these circumstances if a driver was stopped outside of the accepted 14 day grace period.
The whole situation is hugely unsatisfactory, this new DVLA’s system has driven a truck through our service levels and puts at risk the customer satisfaction we have spent years establishing. What’s so frustrating is the whole mess is completely out of our control, it’s a chronic half baked system that is creating havoc and, well…frankly it’s a total cock up.
If the government wants to slash red tape why not go the whole way and replace the paper tax disc with digital registration. All registration number plates are on a national database already, so it can’t be too difficult to link that to a national register of tax discs.
Going fully on-line would completely streamline the process, help save the government money and reduce the potential for fraud. And me? Well at least I’d be able to sleep better.
