This week’s #SaveMoneyMonday is all about car tax and the new changes that will affect anyone who needs to tax a car from the 1st October! Not a very exciting subject but still….
So, for those of you who don’t already know, from the 1st October this year there are big changes to the way that we tax our car – the big one being that we no longer need to display a car tax disc in our cars. It’s no longer necessary so when you buy car tax in future, you won’t get a tax disc and if you still have time to run on your current tax disc after the 1st October, you can destroy your existing disc.
As far as buying your car tax, you’ll still get a reminder before your existing one expires and you can still buy your disc online or at the Post Office but there are different ways to pay which can make budgeting for car tax much easier.
You can now pay by Direct Debit, either annually, six monthly or the most convenient option for budgeting – monthly! I understand that there will be a 5% surcharge to pay monthly but that’s half the current surcharge to pay six monthly which is what I always do anyway so I’m saving a little bit and making the payments more affordable by spreading them over the year rather than having two lump sums.
There’s also changes that will affect you if you are buying or selling a car which you can find out about here if you really want to know.
What do you think?
I have always renewed online so that's no change for me, but being able to pay monthly is going to help a LOT because my MOT and insurance are both due around about the same time as the tax so its been a heavy burden. If the tax expires 30 Sept 2014 can I use the new system to renew – i.e. pay monthly?
As long as we DO get a reminder in good time I don't mind renewing online. They have this system in Malaysia where I used to live, and it saved a very long wait at the PO. I also think the option to pay monthly is great although I'll continue to save up and pay mine all at once.
Might be a bit confusing at first for us oldies lol!! as with most things that have been around for ages but paying monthly gets the thumbs up from me, means I can budget more easily.
Just hope the computers and how they monitor it is up to scratch and all details car tax/insurance details are kept updated. I don’t fancy being flagged down by the police because the DVLA computers got my details wrong all in a all though a good idea in principle.