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By Keith Perry
Paper tax discs will vanish from cars in less than six weeks - but half of
drivers are still unaware of the new rules.
The windscreen tax discs will be scrapped from October 1 and replaced by
electronic records where police cameras will check number plates to catch
owners who have not paid.
However, a survey found that 50 per cent of drivers are still ignorant about
when the changes take effect.
Nearly a third of them said they will not even try to find out what the new
rules are, according to the poll by price comparison website .
The poll found that 6 per cent of motorists believe that the changes are not
coming into force until next year.
Almost a third of those polled said they will wait for instructions from the
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.
However, the comparison website claims that the DVLA has not yet started
adding warnings to tax renewal reminders.
Hannah Maundrell, editor in chief of money.co.uk, said: &Changes to the
vehicle tax system are no bad thing and we fully welcome the introduction of
direct debit payments, particularly for consumers who may be struggling to
keep up with the soaring cost of driving.
&It will also help to eliminate the problem of people who genuinely forget to
renew their tax and end up being stung with a hefty fine.
&However, I suspect the new system may experience some teething problems so
drivers really need to make sure they're on top of their game.&
The move away from paper discs, after 93 years, is designed to offer motorists
more flexible payment options and make it harder for people to evade taxing
their cars.
Estimates show that the changes could save the taxpayer &10million a year. Car
owners will still need to have paid vehicle tax to drive on the roads.
But under the new system, the tax will no longer be automatically transferred
with a car when it is sold.
Sellers are expected to tell the DVLA straight away of the change of ownership
or face &1,000 fines.
Shane Teskey, from vehicle history check , told the Mail:
&Those who fail to inform the DVLA, could be fined and they will still be
liable for any speeding or parking fines and vehicle tax for a car they
don't even own any more.&
Around 53 per cent of drivers said they would use the new option of paying by
direct debit, according to the survey. Those choosing to spread the cost by
paying twice a year or monthly will incur a 5 per cent additional charge.
However this is half of the 10 per cent surcharge currently applied to
six-month tax discs, used by 23 per cent of drivers.
Motorists can also pay annually with no extra cost under the new system.
The scrapping of the tax disc has been well documented, and the change was
officially announced in last year's Autumn Statement.
Automatic number plate recognition cameras will spot motorists who have not
paid the tax. More than 1.7billion tax discs have been issued since 1921.
Last year, the DVLA issued 42.2million of them.
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