Millions, Eh?

Untaxed foreign vehicles are costing millions apparently. The RAC, which is supposed to provide rescue and recovery is dipping its toes into politics.

The government is being urged to clamp down on untaxed foreign vehicles after the RAC warned they were costing the UK millions of pounds a year.

About 60,000 foreign vehicles are registered with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) every year.

However, the RAC said an estimated 15,000 others are not, which it said amounts to about £3m per year in uncollected tax.

The government said it would shortly announce plans to combat the problem.

There isn’t a problem and it isn’t costing anything. Firstly, how many of those vehicles are in the country beyond the allowed six months?

The DVLA was unable to verify how many foreign vehicles coming into the UK are not registered, but did not contest the RAC’s figures.

So, they don’t actually know.

When I was living in France, I registered my vehicles in France, and paid for French insurance. One of our vehicles needed the French equivalent of the MoT and was duly tested. I was crossing back and forth on a regular basis, but was never in the country for six months at a time. The cost to the UK was nothing. Not having something that is not owed is not a cost and never was. Besides, the less the government gets to collect, the less it has to piss up the wall on its insane schemes to restrict our liberty and give to the scum who inhabit the third sector, but that’s another rant for another day.

What we have here is a problem that has not been proven to be a problem and tax that has not been collected that no one actually can demonstrate is owed – but the media is alive with it.

Yes, so there are a number of foreign registered vehicles on our roads, so what? The BBC anchor this morning was positively beside himself when claiming – without a shred of evidence – that this was a danger to the rest of us. Bollocks, frankly.

There isn’t a problem. It doesn’t need fixing. That won’t stop the bastards trying, though.

10 Comments

  1. I’m glad I’m not with the RAC then. Although if the AA and Green Flag get in on this, I’ll still have to give one of them money.

    I wonder what the RAC have to gain by becoming useful idiots for the government

  2. In France there is no Road Fund Licence, the cost of roads is part of the tax on motor fuel, AND most of France’s motorway system is made up of privately run toll roads.

    Why does the UK Government not do likewise? Because virtually from the outset, the Road Fund Licence was raided for general use not building or maintaining roads, and more goes into the general ‘let’s bomb Libya’, or ‘patronise the brown folk’ fund than is spent on roads.

    It is a hidden tax.

    • “…the Road Fund Licence was raided for general use…”

      Ditto National Insurance, hence various NHS & Pensions crises. Our ‘beloved’ governments are the biggest ponzi scheme operators in the world – and as such should be locked up for a very, very long time.

  3. ‘It’s now vehicle excise duty, VED, not road tax, so it’s just part of the general grab. Those who berate cyclists for,”not paying for the roads” have missed this point – no vehicle (drivers) pay for the roads directly. Re Julia’s point about putting it on petrol – they already have – the tax grabbed from fuel duty far exceeds what’s spent on road upkeep & repairs.

  4. I think they are missing the point. I see Romanian and Polish registered cars driven locally for rather more than six month. The point surely is, are they insured or “MOT’d” anywhere. Also what is the status of the right hand drive cars with foreign plates? I live near an industrial estate used at the weekends for coaches picking up and dropping people off. These vehicles almost always have a trailer with an older UK car on board. Can we rreally assume that these are not being reregistered and returned to avoid insurance and oother costs?

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