Tax discs to be scrapped

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Eastsix
Joined: Mon 08 Nov, 2010 00:53
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Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Eastsix »

I see in the autumn statement the tax disc is to be no more - glad i never got round to buying that swanky tax disc holder now.
That'll put richbrook out of business though...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25223631
Last edited by Eastsix on Thu 05 Dec, 2013 12:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Mike
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Mike »

So how are the powers that be going to cover the loss of revenue this generates?

Are the public going to be allowed to query the status of cars left lying about?

All cars to be on a register online I hear so the very expensive camera recognition system will be able to track everyone. Therefore a pay per mile driven system will soon be on the way.

On he other hand putting 'road tax' on petrol achieves this, does it not, without the need for big brother monitoring and fancy cameras etc....

What do others think?
Eastsix
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Eastsix »

its just the physical disc being scrapped, not the tax itself. or 'VED' if you prefer. will al be electronic.
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Robert T
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Robert T »

Tax and MOT status are already recorded in computerised records and can be checked by the Police at the roadside already, or automatically via ANPR.

I think removal of the physical disc is, on the whole, a good thing:

* One less thing that can be physically stolen (particularly from a roadster or motorbike)
* You don't have to remember to swap discs at the end of the month they expire
* Your windscreen will be less cluttered, making more room for forum stickers

The downside is that you can't check the tax status of a car parked in the street without going online - but I don't think this will bother most people.

Sadly, it will also take away the pleasure of taxing the frog, as at the moment I currently go to the Post Office, pay them nothing, yet come out with a shiny new tax disc. :D

Cheers R.
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Davejue1
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Davejue1 »

There are already several counties that have dropped some form of tax disc/sticker in recent years in favour of an electronic system. Anything to save a penny tho eh? It'll cost us more in the long run garanteed!
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Alfie
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Alfie »

Just another excuse for 'Big Brother' to watch your every move. Pure and simple.
Massive public response caused the gov to shelve the 'black box + spy-in-the-sky' scheme a few years ago because of the blatant infringement into the privacy of the individual, and quite right too. This is just another attempt to allow 'officialdom' to keep tabs on the movement of the proletariat 24/7.

If this system is allowed in, it won't be long before they'll be timing your trips between cameras, or between towns, and then of course, you-know-what drops on your doormat a few weeks later.... :evil: I'll bet they won't mind putting that in the post!

And what about the enormous cost of expanding the camera network across the whole land?
(They are already in place in London of course, under the guise of the 'Low Emissions Zone'.)
And then there's the security aspect. Bumper times for hackers, burglars, crooks and scammers who will all be able to find out when you're 100 miles from home. I could go on....

Anyway, it ain't broke, so don't fix it.
FFS surely this crock of poo in Westminster have more important things to worry about than paper tax discs!!!

The only change they should make is the fairest and by far the easiest one....abolish VED and add the average equivalent to fuel.
But that's a whole other discussion!

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BladeRunner919
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by BladeRunner919 »

Alfie wrote:Just another excuse for 'Big Brother' to watch your every move. Pure and simple.
Massive public response caused the gov to shelve the 'black box + spy-in-the-sky' scheme a few years ago because of the blatant infringement into the privacy of the individual, and quite right too. This is just another attempt to allow 'officialdom' to keep tabs on the movement of the proletariat 24/7.
I think they're scrapping the paper discs because the electronic systems are already in place, rather than as an excuse to implement them. The police already use ANPR rather than looking at the tax disc.

I'm pleased that they will be introducing monthly direct debit as a option - certainly better than suddenly having to find a chunk of cash.
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Alfie
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Alfie »

BladeRunner919 wrote:I think they're scrapping the paper discs because the electronic systems are already in place, rather than as an excuse to implement them.
In London yes, and probably in some other big metropoli, but elsewhere? I'm certainly not aware of such cameras here in Dorset.
BladeRunner919 wrote:The police already use ANPR rather than looking at the tax disc.
As far as I'm aware, police ANPR is only fitted to patrol cars, not fixed to dedicated and ugly street furniture, so needs to be manually pointed at specific vehicles.
Not nice, but nowhere near as serious as clocking and recording EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE that passes through a fixed point every hour of every day.

We live in the most closely monitored society on the planet and I think enough is enough. So many freedoms are prone to being abused by this 'close monitoring' type of system, and it's really important that honest 'citizens' should resist such infringement of their privacy....

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Del
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Del »

I expect the Government is also seeking to find a cheaper way to collect this tax as their "tax take" must be falling in real terms with all these new "eco-diesels" on the roads these days that are in a category which is a lot lower than most Z3s. This is probably why the pot holes are getting worse :wink:
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Gazza
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Gazza »

Like I've said before, put the VED Tax on fuel, no need for expensive extra camera systems or checks by the Police.
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BladeRunner919
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by BladeRunner919 »

Alfie wrote: As far as I'm aware, police ANPR is only fitted to patrol cars, not fixed to dedicated and ugly street furniture, so needs to be manually pointed at specific vehicles.
Not nice, but nowhere near as serious as clocking and recording EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE that passes through a fixed point every hour of every day.

We live in the most closely monitored society on the planet and I think enough is enough. So many freedoms are prone to being abused by this 'close monitoring' type of system, and it's really important that honest 'citizens' should resist such infringement of their privacy....

A.
I agree with what you're saying, but my point was only that the VED data is already on a database and is already checked electronically. Literally the only difference in the proposal is to stop actually printing the disc. They could have carried on with the printing of the disc and still increased the surveillance - the physical disc and the surveillance/anpr are completely independent of each other.
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Robert T
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Robert T »

Alfie, this is not about tracking vehicle usage, or pay per mile or anything like that. The DVLA already have electronic records of ALL vehicles registered in the UK and whether they have paid their tax or been declared SORN. The requirement to display a piece of paper to declare that you have paid your tax and are thus entitled to drive the car on the road is nearly as antiquated as the use of paper tape to feed data into computers. Tax reminders and threatening letters are already sent out automatically, the only thing that will disappear is the needless piece of paper. I suspect the Police have long since stopped looking at the paper discs anyway, as there is too much fraud, and just run a check against the vehicle's registration, which will also tell them the insurance and MOT status - ANPR does this automatically on registrations read using a camera, but even without it, they could radio the control room and get them to check, or use an in car system. Paying by direct debit also makes a lot of sense, as you cannot then forget to tax your car, even if you are on holiday - and I would hope that it will also help if you change cars part way through a year, you will only have paid for the months you have used, not for a full year, and the direct debit amount will change if you change bands. I assume that there will also be a corresponding change in the law, removing the requirement to display a valid tax disc.

Of course, they could save even more money by scrapping the system entirely and just relying on fuel tax and VAT. There would be nothing to enforce, no postage costs... but it would also mean that keeping the database of registered vehicles and owners up to date would be that much harder.

Cheers R.
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Alfie
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Alfie »

Robert T wrote:Alfie, this is not about tracking vehicle usage, or pay per mile or anything like that.
Maybe not today, but what about tomorrow?
It's just another step down that slippery path.

Once the hardware is in place, sneaked in under the pretense of simplifying the VED system, it won't take much for some money-grabbing anti-car politician to authorise that extra line of code in the software to start it all off, will it?

And if the spyware is only installed in a few selected locations, the dodgers will soon learn where they are and take a different route, so by definition, the cameras have to be everywhere. I really don't want to see all our city streets and country lanes littered with even more expensive hardware that we really don't need.

I'm not precious or nostalgic about keeping the bit of paper stuck to the glass, but there are very sinister potential implications to the system they are proposing to replace it.

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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

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Robert T
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Robert T »

There is no new hardware needed for this. The DVLA have already have computer - an ageing mainframe by all accounts... - it already holds all the data neede.

The police already use this data to check the tax status of vehicles during roadside checks - they usually want to know the registered keeper as well - which is not shown on your tax disc.

ANPR already exists and is in use by the Police today... it already picks up untaxed vehicles and can be deployed anywhere... frequently on motorway bridges, but in patrol cars as well. All it does is read a numberplate automatically and the look up the same data that the police already have access to - the difference is that it does it quickly and flags up suspect vehicles - I doubt that it is capable of recording all the numberplates it has read in a day - just the ones that come up as "hits".

Now when they start wanting to use every roadside camera to read vehicle numberplates, only then will I start to get worried. However, this would require a massively powerful computer to process all the data and the DVLA were certainly struggling to even handle tax renewals a few years back. I'm not even sure that the majority of cameras could even read a numberplate - the images are way to fuzzy. Only those designed to do so, like those for the London Congestion Charge might be highjacked for other use - the rest would have to upgraded first.

Cheer R.
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Zed Carer
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Zed Carer »

Alfie wrote:If this system is allowed in, it won't be long before they'll be timing your trips between cameras, or between towns, and then of course, you-know-what drops on your doormat a few weeks later.... :evil: I'll bet they won't mind putting that in the post!

And what about the enormous cost of expanding the camera network across the whole land?
A.
The majority (probably all by now) of the motorway and some of the major trunk road network has had the system installed for quite a long time.

When a VMS ( Variable Message Sign) displays "Distance to Jct 309, Distance 6 miles, Time 5 Minutes" have you ever wondered where the information has come from? Well all junctions have ANPR on both carriageways and all slip roads so every journey is currently recorded, and has been for quite a number of years.
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Brian H
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Brian H »

Robert T wrote: I doubt that it is capable of recording all the numberplates it has read in a day - just the ones that come up as "hits".
The ANPR systems can easily store all the number captured in a day, the software/hardware at the back end of the camera is already doing the hard part by processing the number plate against a database, to store the number is a simple line of text. The database in each system is updated at a regular interval with cars that "are of interest" and this simply flags up an alarm when a car passes through the system.
Robert T wrote:Now when they start wanting to use every roadside camera to read vehicle numberplates, only then will I start to get worried. However, this would require a massively powerful computer to process all the data and the DVLA were certainly struggling to even handle tax renewals a few years back. I'm not even sure that the majority of cameras could even read a numberplate - the images are way to fuzzy. Only those designed to do so, like those for the London Congestion Charge might be highjacked for other use - the rest would have to upgraded first.
In theory most town centre cameras can be used for this operation, a simple connection of the camera feed to a valid ANPR system will produce hits, the town centre cameras are capable of zooming in to road junctions/busy roads good enough to capture number plates. The one thing on our side is that most town centre system are funded and run by local councils and they simply do not need this type of information. But beware this is not too hard to achieve!
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Geoff H
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by Geoff H »

I used to buy tax disc's from the salesmen in a few of the main dealerships we brought the trade-ins from, they would pocket them off the cars when they were traded in and I would give them about half of what they were worth, then send them off for the refund. That scam will now be stopped, so a few car salesmen won't be happy at that.
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pingu
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Re: Tax discs to be scrapped

Post by pingu »

I suspect the monthly DD will be more than 1/12th the cost of an annual DD. It will probably be 1/10th.

I would love to be able to go online, tax for a day and drive, then SORN it again. I'm sure they won't let me do it daily, but I'll be happy enough with monthly. It would save me a small fortune as most of my cars are only driven on an ad-hoc basis.
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