AUTHOR Robert Gillespie

Bye Bye Tax Disc

As of October 2014 you can wave good bye to that tax disc that has been stuck on car windscreens for 93 years. The Chancellor has abolished the car tax disc but even though this is to be scrapped people will be still made to pay the Vehicle Excise Duty however it could see huge savings on the traditional tax disc method as the change of the way tax is paid will mean a reduce in costs.

In the past five years the numbers of tax discs that have been checked by officers on cars has seen a decrease of a massive 75%. The reason for the decline is that the tax disc is really no longer needed thanks to both the electronic vehicle register and DVLA there are easier ways to see if a car has paid their tax rather than having to peer in their windscreen, number plate recognition equipment make the job much simpler and less time consuming. If you are pulled over by a police man or woman they can almost instantly pull your details up on whether you are insured, taxed or whatever it may be, so obviously because of this the police are in support of binning the tax disc.

This will give people more choice when it comes to paying for their tax as you have the choice of paying monthly, six monthly or yearly with the more you pay in a block the cheaper it will get, for instance if you pay for sixth months it is 10% cheaper. Paying monthly may be more convenient however it will also include a charge of 5 per cent rather than a 10 per cent charge.

In traduced in 1888 with the only real change being the introduction of colour in 1923 the tax disc was well in need of a revamp upgrade. The change gives a visual symbol of how the government are modernising and changing with the times, or at least sort of.

RIP Tax Disc, I would say it’s been fun, but it hasn’t.

Having worked in the car rental industry for over 15 years, he really knows his stuff. Rob heads up our marketing department and as a keen traveller, always has a new location to talk about. Particularly if there is a golf course nearby.

Robert Gillespie

Traveller