Changes To Taxing Your Car on the 1st October

After October 1st, you won’t be able to purchase a vehicle with current road tax as road tax will no longer be transferable when a vehicle is sold. This means when using vehicles, the only options for trade held vehicles are trade plates, or to register it in your name and buy new road tax. Also, there will no longer be a paper trade plate licence to display (but this still must be purchased) but the rules for trade plates and their use don’t change.

If you sell used cars (as many readers do) then the onus is on you to inform the DVLA when you sell a vehicle. Once DVLA is notified, then a refund will be automatically issued for any full months of tax outstanding on the vehicle. The buyer must then tax the vehicle from the time he buys it. DVLA have made changes that means the new keeper can go online or give them ring any time day or night using the new keeper supplement section of the log book to tax the vehicle.

If you fail to inform the DVLA, then you will still be liable for the tax on the car and could be fined.

DVLA have introduced payments online, including Direct Debit payment options and the local Post Office branch will still take payments. Checking whether a vehicle is taxed will be open to anyone at this website https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax using the registration number and make of the vehicle.

Vehicles transferred to an Auction company will all be untaxed from 1 October, Once the seller tells DVLA that they have sold the vehicle they will receive an automatic refund of any full months remaining. The buyer will need to tax the vehicle using the V5C/2 before they take it from the auction house. Again, this can be done online or by phone.

The key point is that no vehicle you buy will have existing tax on it, not even until the end of the month that has been paid for. DVLA will cancel the road tax immediately so don’t think that because they are only refunding whole months that the vehicle is taxed until the end of the current month. This does look like they are trying a typical taxman’s scam of playing their rules both ways - when you buy the tax it starts at the beginning of the month and when you sell, the refund starts at the end of the month!