UKC

I'm confused re car tax. I was under the impression that car tax doesn't passport across to new owners. I have just bought a second hand car and have the V5C form which is now in my name. I went onto the Govt car tax website to pay and put in all the relevant details and it says..
"Tax/SORN status - Your vehicle will be taxed from 01 February 2016 Are you aware that your vehicle's current tax is not due to expire until 01 November 2016?
However, if you have been told to tax by DVLA, please continue with the transaction"

I haven't been contacted by the DVLA to tax this vehicle. I was just doing it off my own bat. Is it just a latency issue with the DVLA and the car tax office and I will be contacted in due course?

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

I don't blame you for being confused - I thought the tax died instantly with each transaction now which is, frankly, a pain in the butt and an extra hassle to sort out that you didn't usually need to do immediately.

Perhaps they've changed the blasted system again??

In reply to Babika:

Its certainly not clear. Think i will just pay it, last thing i want is a fine

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Car tax is definitely not transferable now so you need to tax it before driving it home (in theory). Pain in the arse and a nice revenue earner for the treasury who now get 2 months tax for the same month every time a car is sold.

Scroll down a bit to where it says "buying a vehicle" for more info.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vehicle-tax-changes

In reply to pec:

Thx, yes I will tax it today. But I am not surprised people get caught out when they receive messages like the one above implying the vehicle is already taxed.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

As has been said the tax does not transfer. I would guess that the message is due to the fact that the old tax has not yet been officially cancelled on the system & refunded to the old owner.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:
If the seller did the notification by post it takes much longer to update and the process as far as I know is still separate for the V5 and the tax refund (I've you can notify change of owner, but choose not to ask for a tax refund). Online it is all in one - the sold notification automatically triggers the tax refund.

The beta online notification can apparently can take up to five days to update the website database. Even then it is not that clear - I sold a car earlier this month and it does comes up at near the top of the webpage as untaxed with a "X untaxed" and in box coloured in red, yet further down the same page it clearly says "Taxed and due" whatever that actually means!

Read that there have been into the thousands of "honest" mistakes last year and suspect there will be many more. Last year I never received a reminder to renew the car tax, and there must be many that just forget because of this let alone the folk that buy a car thinking that the tax is still valid after purchase.

In reply to Climbing Pieman:


Tax refund is automatic on change of registered keeper.

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

And while you are trying to chase up the tax issue, you could also look at the new DVLA MOT database, listing all the pass/fail data in the vehicle's history.

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/

Most importantly, it will tell you whether the car has an MOT and when renewal is due.

In reply to Mad Tommy:

Thx, I did that before buying it (advisory on front right tyre was issued if you're interested as well as the HPI check.