Why tf do they make it to hard to tax a car?

[mildgreenfairyliquid]

I'm not terribly organised. I realise that if you do the car tax as soon as the reminder arrives, this doesn't apply. I'm not after replies telling me to just be better organised (although obviously crack on if that's what gets you up in the morning).

But WHY will they not just let you pay the fucking tax? Why does the reminder letter RUN OUT? Why won't they accept the code on the vehicle owner slip, even if they say they will. Why won't they let you renew if the reminder letter has gone awol? Are there rogue vehicle-tax-payers out there trying to tax other people's cars for them, that the DVLA is having to crack down on? Or is it just to make life that bit more fucking difficult? (Or perhaps to increase the possibility people will need to pay fines...).

I'd love an explanation. That is all.

I'm so sorry @Triptraptrippytap . The very last thing you need after your DH died.

The thing that infuriates me is that if you have an eco-friendly car with zero tax you CAN'T set up an annual Direct Debit, you HAVE TO go through the same bureaucratic rigmarole every year on their horrible website in order to pay £0.00 and you get threatened with a £1000 fine if you fail to go onto the website and pay £0.00 by the deadline.

This doesn't cut it for me. Why does the 16 digit code go out of date? Why won't they accept reg put in twice, or with an additional check on car make/model, or whatever? We can be trusted to put in our credit card details, but not our reg?

Nope, it just keeps going.

Well I never - how strange

I pay annually burly DD and never had to set it up more than once. It definitely goes out every August though

Isn't that changing this year? You won't have wasted time as you'll have some tax to pay

I agree. Presumably insurance companies don’t worry about you typing the wrong post code in and accidentally not having home insurance, or indeed even the wrong registration for your car insurance.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone has made it deliberately difficult. It’s a government run organisation and therefore a bit crap, see also HMRC and the NHS.

Yes I have one of those, a 2016 Fiesta, it is annoying but all change this year as I think there will be no zero tax cars from April and I will have to pay £20 I think. Though it is due July so I think I am going to be an absolute cheapskate and tax it this month to get a few free months. Martin Lewis is advising doing this for zero tax EVs

Haha, this is even better!

Try having 20 vans and 5 cars to sodding organise. Fml

As the driver of an old banger, I'm quite envious of all these 0/£20 tax stories....

A friend got clamped, whilst her tax direct debit was in place(or so she thought), because they had cancelled it. The dealer hadn’t completed the change of owner on the log book correctly when she bought the car, so apparently they just cancelled the tax.

You think it's difficult to do it online? Oh you must be young.

Any other oldies who remember digging out their old tax disc, insurance documents, MOT and owernship paperwork and trotting up to the Post Office? You queued up, someone went through the documents as if they were auditioning for US Border Force while the queue behind you sighed and tutted, then you paid by cash or cheque (it was ages before they'd accept a credit/debit card). Got a new tax disc stamped and signed, took it back and put it on the windscreen.

I find the online direct debit system a joy to use 😁

It is daft, surely these days you should be able to do it by putting in your reg number- why would you pay vehicle tax if it's not your own!
A few years ago the dealership made a mistake with the paperwork when I bought a car, which I didn't notice until it came to paying the tax - oh the palaver! I had to go and pay it in person at a DVLA office in the end luckily only 20 mins drive from my house

Because they don't want people putting it off and having untaxed cars driving around for days or weeks while the owner keeps forgetting.

So they make it as inconvenient as possible to forget so that people remember the stress the last time they forgot and do it this time. It works. It's such a pain in the arse that you only make that mistake once.

If it's something important you find a way to remember. Stick a post it on your phone when you get the letter, ask Alexa/Siri/other AI to remind you, set an alarm to go off every day until you do it.

It is a 5 minute job from the luxury of your sofa as soon as the paperwork comes in. It couldn't really be any simpler!

It's an awful lot easier than it used to be when the only option was to pay at the post office and you had to show them your MOT certificate and insurance documents. Wee old spinster in our tiny village Post Office loved a good nosey at the insurance documents checking for speeding fines etc 😆.

The DVLA I consider to be a failing organisation. I wonder if it is because of the location being national instead of some kind of regional organisation, or even just offices that divide up the work on some basis.

What the OP and others have mentioned is inconvenient and annoying, their lack of or slow action for those unfit to hold a licence probably leads to more deaths and injuries on the roads that would be the case with a well run DVLA.

And you had to tear off a load of perforations to fit it in your tax disc holder, with the attendant jeopardy of wondering if it you might rip the disc 😂