On Thursday 5th December the chancellor of the exchequer announced a change to the law regarding the way that vehicle tax is processed in the United Kingdom. The changes have come about as the UK government look for ways to reduce the administration costs and other burdens associated with vehicle road tax.
There are two main changes which will come into effect from 1st October 2014, these are:
1) Goodbye Paper Tax Disc
Paper tax discs will no longer be issued or be required to be displayed in a vehicle windscreen. Nowadays the DVLA (Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency) keep a digital record of who has and hasn’t paid their vehicle road tax, so the need to display this information in the vehicles windscreen has become unnecessary.
The traffic police on Britains road have long had ANPR (automatic number plate readers), and use this technology combined with access to the vehicle database at the DVLA to gather the required information they need.
By abolishing the tax disc, invented back in 1921, the DVLA believe administration costs will be slashed for many fleet operators and other motor related businesses.
2) Hello Monthly Direct Debit Payments
From 1st October 2014 the government will be introducing the option to pay your vehicle road tax by direct debit either annually, bi-annually or monthly. This is the first time the option to pay vehicle road tax monthly has been offered by the government, despite 6 monthly payments being available for many decades. To reduce the impact of these changes, there will be a 5% surcharge for monthly or bi-yearly payments whilst yearly vehicle road tax payments will receive no surcharge.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/direct-debit-and-abolition-of-the-tax-disc