Vehicle Tax
I always sorn my M/H in the winter months and this year, was unable to use the van, for various reasons until June. I retaxed the van at 9.46 AM via the internet the morning of 5th June and set off around 90 minutes later for Kendal.
Yesterday I received notification that I was being fined £439 as my van was spotted at 11.54 AM on 5th June and wasn't taxed! Luckily, I had received an e-mail verifying my transaction and that the payment had been processed and giving me a reference number. I am very annoyed about this. As the transaction taxes the vehicle right away, I cannot understand why the DVLA's computer appears not to know that the vehicle was already taxed. I have filled in the appeal on the back of the notification of the penalty's form and notified them of the reference number of the transaction and sent them a very irate letter. I was wondereing if anyone else has had this problem?
Comments
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Oh boy reading your post took me back many many years.
I did a few years in the County Council on vehicle licensing. Including untaxed reports.
In those days if vehicles were taxed at the public counter, in person, there was a date stamp with the time for just this occasion. Or more particularly those stopped and paying after the event.
Keep your email and continue discussions. You should be fine.
Additional unwanted stress but that's progress for you. Old days you'd have had a physical disc to display 😉
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Why leave taxing your vehicle to the last minute? As peedee says next time tax it a day or two earlier and avoid the problem.
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I will give myself 5 black marks for being a naughty girl! I don't usually tax it until nearer to when I am due to go away (although not as late as the same day), because, sometimes there is a problem so I can't go - but in this case, I simply forgot until the day before and I was tied up with other things so waited until the next morning. That being said, if the DVLA send an e-mail within 3 minutes of my taxing the M/H, to verify that I have done so and that they have taken the payment, then surely one would assume that it was now on their system and as the penalty letter was dated the 21 June, they should definitely have known by then. If it is not almost instantaneous, they should advise people that, that is the case. In future, I will take your and Peedee's advice and tax it a few days prior to using it.
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It is not something that had occurred to me before, but of course there would have been people who tried to get round being penalised, by taxing their vehicle after they have been caught, so the date and time would have to have been stamped to stop them doing so. I did keep the e-mail - I am a bit paranoid about keeping things like that, but I object to the DVLA inferring that I had committed an offence. I didn't agree with doing away with tax discs and from listening to the news and reading the papers there are numerous people who don't tax t(or insure or MOT) their vehicles but drive around anyway and one wonders how they get away with it!
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I wonder if its a case of systems not updating the information until over night on the day of taxation, this would explain why you got the penalty notice? I would be surprised if the notice wasn't rescinded when you provide the information. There is an App called Vehicle Smart which you can use to see if a vehicle is taxed, so in your case you would have been able to see the tax status of the vehicle on the day of departure.
David
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You can also check the taxation status on the Govt’s own DVLA website and I’ve noticed it takes a couple of days to update which could explain a lot.
https://www.gov.uk/get-vehicle-information-from-dvla
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.... there are numerous people who don't tax t(or insure or MOT)
in the case of MOT it would seem that you can drive almost all year without MOT & not get caught. A few years back, a car of ours was without MOT for about 10 months purely due to an oversight ..... It was only when the system wouldn't let me tax it that I realised. 😳
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So you get 5 black marks and are a naughty boy as well! But your lack of MOT was an oversight, not something which you did purposely and fortunately, many garages now notify you if your MOT is due. Unfortunately, however, many people have no intention of paying anything to keep their vehicle on the road and those of us who do pay, end up paying for those who don't.
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Perhaps a little down to luck (not passing a patrol car with a reader) and type of roads. In the OP’s case I assume they used the M6 to get to Kendal. On those police TV real life progs, they often refer to a car triggering a reader on on a motorway or trunk road.
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Many many years ago you got, by post, a mitigated penalty when facts were checked. This would be unpaid tax plus a failure to display penalty.
In your case it wouldn't have come to that's you'd be displaying a disc.
That sum seems unreasonable for the equivalent of failure to display and would include all the months of unpaid tax - covered by the SORN. If they come back with similar and you previously regularly SORN'd point that out too. The documents all used to be there in the paper folders 📂 🤣
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Off on holiday on my shared narrowboat for 2 weeks now, so I will have to wait until I come back to see what they say. As I have proof of when I paid, I fail to see how they can penalise me, BUT one never knows. I doubt if they will be too pleased by my irate letter though!
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Cheers Bakers. I am using Overwater Marina wifi to reply, before setting off on my cruise. (The CL here is very good for anyone who is looking for a good CL in the area). I really only posted as I wondered if anyone else had had a similar penalty notice. Ironically, I have been sent a "what do you think of our service", questionaire from the DVLA, but I couldn't vent my spleen as it was a 1-10, type of questionaire and as their service was initially very good, I had to give them an excellent review as there was nowhere to mention the aftermath!
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