DVLA Thieving...

[Trev1964]

I heard that in the news. Money wise its failed miserably.

 

[Xtractorfan]

We have to subscribe to read the article Dave, ha they must be joking.
As for your opening paragraph about the reasons for the having to retax an already taxed car. It is a good excuse and well thought out..Fleece the car buying public, use the criminal argument to justify why we are doing it... and the treasury are the winners. And who can argue with it.

 

[davemercedes]

We have to subscribe to read the article Dave, ha they must be joking. As for your opening paragraph about the reasons for the having to retax an already taxed car. It is a good excuse and well thought out..Fleece the car buying public, use the criminal argument to justify why we are doing it... and the treasury are the winners. And who can argue with it.

It's funny - I usually click the X when the popup appears and find I can read it. In essence it says that since they dropped the tax disc their income fell by £200M. Dont'cha love it when a plan comes together, eh?

 

[towat]

I remember a few years ago when they stopped motorcyclists from buying 6 months tax making them have 12 months even if they only used them during the summer, yes you can SORN them and get a refund but it was blatantly a tactic to generate more money.

 

[Hi RX7]

I remember a few years ago when they stopped motorcyclists from buying 6 months tax making them have 12 months even if they only used them during the summer, yes you can SORN them and get a refund but it was blatantly a tactic to generate more money.

In relation to my recent debacle over my motorbike number being put on my car, the system also grabbed two lots of £88 for the motorbikes RFL and its taken over 2 months to get my money back.

 

[davemercedes]

That's disgraceful - and worse I bet you didn't get a single word of apology!

 

[Hi RX7]

That's disgraceful - and worse I bet you didn't get a single word of apology!

Of course not, one thing I would advise everyone to do after my dealings with DVLA. Photocopy anything like V5C's send everything recorded delivery. When they take over a month to do anything do not take the option of starting another case enquiry, although if you sent it recorded you don't have to worry.
As this was the first time I'd dealt with them I wasn't sure if they had actually received my stuff as I didn't send it recorded. So when I phoned (that's a fun way of wasting a couple of hours of your life) I was asked if I wanted to start a new case enquiry, as it had been over four weeks, I was tempted but decided to hang on two days later I received a letter from them stating they had received my documentation so if I'd have started another case enquiry I'd probably have months of waiting, anyway things are still moving at a snails pace. So meantime my CL65 has a Harley Davidson related number plate on it and my other personal plate is God knows where.
As I mentioned I've paid admin fees with my insurance companies for changing registration numbers and will still have more money to pay out once the number plate comes off my CL goes on my bike and DVLA eventually find my personal reg number. Shambles doesn't even begin to describe it.

 

[umblecumbuz]

That does it - I'm buying a horse and buggy.

Umble.

 

[Xtractorfan]

It's funny - I usually click the X when the popup appears and find I can read it. In essence it says that since they dropped the tax disc their income fell by £200M. Dont'cha love it when a plan comes together, eh?

Losing money, I wonder will anyone be prepared to take the flack and change the system back to being simple and user friendly to the people who matter, and pay for it.

 

[davemercedes]

Losing money, I wonder will anyone be prepared to take the flack and change the system back to being simple and user friendly to the people who matter, and pay for it.

Of course not...

We have to remember that like many things (especially to do with government), their system is designed for the benefit of the staff/agency - not the paying "customer" (huh! "customer"... as if you had a choice!).

To be fair, the two things I find useful are i) online road tax renewal and ii) the automatic update of the MOT details. But the road tax renewal effort is all provided by the taxpayer and the MOT information is fed into the system by each test station so in both cases they have nothing manual to do.

This is unbelievable: -

I found their annual statements for 2012-13 and 2015-18 online. The number of "full time staff" shown is: March 2013: 5,612 and March 2016: 5,554 - Difference 2013 - 2016 = -58

In the 2010-11 report it shows "workforce" numbers: -

2006: 6374.4
2007: 6141
2008: 5916.5
2009: 5689.5
2010: 5613.5
2011: 5561

Between 2011 (5561) and 2016 (5554) with presumably increasing numbers of transactions being done online, they managed to reduce (5561 to 5554) = a whole SEVEN staff!

Wow. Lies, damned lies, and statistics !

 

[MalcQV]

On a brighter note because of an ongoing issue I have with one of my toys at home I have SORN'd both of them online and before 7pm (just in case) So far so good!

 

[davemercedes]

At least you get some satisfaction with SORN by being able to withold tax legally!