Received a letter,this morning,from DVLA.Apparently,my vehicle is NOT taxed!
I traded in my previous vehicle(Volvo V50) at the end of November 2014.My dealer sorted out the Road Tax for me,along with the transfer of my personal number on to my new vehicle.
Some months later,I received a letter stating that,my vehicle was not taxed.I wrote back to them,explaining that I had traded in my previous vehicle,and transferred the personal number to my current vehicle.I also mentioned that I hadn't received my road tax refund for the Volvo.In due course,I received a cheque through the post,which seemed more than expected, but what do I know.
It seems to me that, I have received a refund for my current vehicle,thereby,for the last couple of months, I have been running around without Road Tax.I still haven't received a refund from November/December 2014.
As you can imagine,I'm a bit pi ed off with the DVLA.
Has anyone else had any problems with the DVLA with regard to "automatic"refunds?

New rules came in in August last year.
Watchdog covered this in last nights show, go and watch it on the I Player I6 WITH GAS CONVERSION
HST BODY KIT
OSRAM LED DRIVING FOGS
CARS LOOKING GOOOOD!

Just watched Watchdog on BBC iplayer.Absoluteley scandalous.
In my case,the DVLA didn't send me an automatic refund for my previous car. I had to write to them,but the stupid sods, refunded me my current road tax,thereby making my current car illegal on the road,without my knowledge.
It seems that the personal number caused problems for them,because they couldn't figure out that there was two cars involved.
I should have run my new car on the original registration,got the refund for my old car, and then transferred the personal reg.
Lastly, I never had any problems before the new system came into force.

Well - looking at the website (about to put my retained plate on the FL2 XS) I see it's a deal easier now - just the V5C, the retention certificate and the application form. To be fair, the workers in that department - and many areas of DVLA, have had a lot of change to cope with and there are new systems across the board. I find them helpful and responsive to suggestion for improvement. To that end I have pointed out a grammatical error on the main taxation webpage and they accepted the criticism graciously and agreed to change it.

Interestingly, in relation to the tax disadvantages for the purchasers of taxed vehicles - i.e. they must pay for the full month from date of purchase, a similar situation arose in the 1970s when TV licensing costs rose. There was a perceived advantage in buying a new full year license before the old one expired - but at the lower rate. Civil servants decided to quash this practice and an individual took them through a protracted legal process and won his case on appeal. In essence it was a case of "no taxation without representation!" - an issue close to the hearts of those across the pond and one that precipitated our conflict and their eventual independence.

Basically, the ruling was that it was not parliamentary legislation that had prevented people saving money but rather a departmental change in procedure. Such things are illegal despite being designed and enacted by officialdom.
Perhaps the loss to the purchaser of the second-hand car and the doubled whammy of two months worth of tax in one calendar month was not on the actual legislation. ? I doubt it though.

It's important to acknowledge that the vendor isn't in a worse position now.

On a slightly different tack, my son and I are thinking of swapping over ownership and insurance on our FL2s (he does a lot of miles and I don't) and I was wondering if there is an optimum time in the month to do the change or perhaps just drive on each other's insurance and change the main driver over. Any thoughts? 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

In reality, in terms of double whammy, the situation now is no different to how it was... Apart from being non optional.

If I traded my car ,taxed to December, in mid August say, I would send the paper disc back and get just the three whole months remaining. Matey comes along a week later and buys my lovely car and has to tax it from the beginning of August.

The only real difference now is that we don't have a choice whether we reclaim the 'tax'. Once we get used to it and the bugs are ironed out it will probably be better but the bullsh*t about the system not being able to manage unexpired weeks or days is just that... Pure full fat steaming bullsh*t! If it suited them they could even charge and refund us by the minute, never mind unexpired whole months only.

Im quite surprised these days you can actually claim any of it back, many things once youve paid thats it, no refunds.
Airline tickets being a big problem, no refund once paid in many cases, its just hard luck, your seat go unused by you but the person who has it has to pay for it too, so theres another case of paid twice for the same seat.

dorsetfreelander wrote:

On a slightly different tack, my son and I are thinking of swapping over ownership and insurance on our FL2s (he does a lot of miles and I don't) and I was wondering if there is an optimum time in the month to do the change or perhaps just drive on each other's insurance and change the main driver over. Any thoughts?