Change of Ownership and Tax

coco_lola

I bought a car recently that was out of tax, and the change of ownership has now been logged. The car is registered to my home address in Limerick as I'm only in Dublin temporarily and don't want to go through the hassle of changing addresses when I move back home again. Obviously this means my log book has been posted there, and the tax will have to be done there too (or I can do it online).

Obviously if I want to tax the car at home that would mean I would need to drive to Limerick and don't want to get caught without tax on the car, so I went to tax it online, and it's asking me to pay for tax since the 1st Feb! The change of ownership only went through 2 days ago, should the system not pick up on this? What I assume is it just picked up that change of ownership went through in Feb, so I need to tax for Feb.

Am I better off to pay it even though I wasn't driving it? There seems to be no other way other than to chance driving to Limerick without tax, which with Operation Focus in place throughout Dublin now, I'd rather not do. I know the last time I bought a car, the person in the Tax Office just had me tax the car from the change of ownership date.

Guy:Incognito

coco_lola wrote: »

I bought a car recently that was out of tax, and the change of ownership has now been logged. The car is registered to my home address in Limerick as I'm only in Dublin temporarily and don't want to go through the hassle of changing addresses when I move back home again. Obviously this means my log book has been posted there, and the tax will have to be done there too (or I can do it online)..

You can tax it in any motor tax office you like, Dublin, Limerick or anywhere else.

coco_lola wrote: »

, so I went to tax it online, and it's asking me to pay for tax since the 1st Feb! The change of ownership only went through 2 days ago, should the system not pick up on this? What I assume is it just picked up that change of ownership went through in Feb, so I need to tax for Feb..

Tax is done on whole months. Doesnt matter if you buy it on the first or last day of the month, your liable for that month if your driving it.


Ubless you declare it off the road for February, you'll have to pay for the month.

CiniO

Fill in RF100a form, declare you were not using your car in February, and with this go to motor tax office to tax it.
If you can't go yourself, you can always ask someone to go for you.
They don't check ID there while someone is taxing a car.

coco_lola

Thanks for this guys, I'm going to declare it off the road because I won't be driving it until tomorrow, it's been at the mechanics getting a few bits done before I could drive it.

I didn't know you could tax in any office, Guy:Incognito! Thanks for that I assumed you'd have to tax where the car is registered. I also need to renew my licence (I know, all at once right?!) as it's due for expiry soon, can that be done in a Dublin tax office or would that have to be done in the Limerick one?

coco_lola

Bump!

Max Power1

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

You can tax it in any motor tax office you like, Dublin, Limerick or anywhere else.

Nope
I (kildare address) tried a few years back to tax a car in the Ballymun office but they told me I had to go to Kildare

Guy:Incognito

Max Power1 wrote: »

Nope
I (kildare address) tried a few years back to tax a car in the Ballymun office but they told me I had to go to Kildare

My cousin was working in Galway last year and taxed his car there. (He's from Dublin) Like many things in motor tax offices it seems to come down to the individual office or even the different people working there as to what they let you do.

mgbgt1978

You will usually be sent to your local motor tax office (obviously determined by the address on the VLC) to tax your car.
If you want to declare the car "off the road" for Feb you normally should to go to your local Garda station to get the form stamped.
Eg. If you go into Harcourt st. station the desk officer may well refuse to stamp the form as you have a Limerick address. Not that they will have anything against Limerick in particular, just that the Guard may assume that you are using your non-dublin address to obtain cheaper insurance.
You don't mention what car it is, but if the tax is fairly low then it's probably quicker (and cheaper than driving down to Limerick) to just tax it online and pay for Feb. You can pay up to 3 month's arrears online.

cadaliac

mgbgt1978 wrote: »

You will usually be sent to your local motor tax office (obviously determined by the address on the VLC) to tax your car.
If you want to declare the car "off the road" for Feb you normally should to go to your local Garda station to get the form stamped.
Eg. If you go into Harcourt st. station the desk officer may well refuse to stamp the form as you have a Limerick address. Not that they will have anything against Limerick in particular, just that the Guard may assume that you are using your non-dublin address to obtain cheaper insurance.
You don't mention what car it is, but if the tax is fairly low then it's probably quicker (and cheaper than driving down to Limerick) to just tax it online and pay for Feb. You can pay up to 3 month's arrears online.

Wouldn't you think in this day and age that everyone was reading from the same page? I mean, how come you can tax your car online, in Cork or Donegal, and the info acquired is the same? Some bullsh1t statement from some public servant about wrong county crap would drive me mad.
//rant

coco_lola

Thanks everyone! Yeah I noticed Guards are a bit funny about signing forms alright.. I really don't want to pay arrears on this car, it's been out of tax since December and it's 95euro every three months, so that's almost 200 euro for 3 months of driving! I think I will take my chances and drive down to Limerick, I'll be driving on Monday and AFAIK there is a certain grace period? Or is that down to the individual guard?

rocky

You only have to pay for February, the tax situation with the previous owner does not concern you.

coco_lola

rocky wrote: »

You only have to pay for February, the tax situation with the previous owner does not concern you.

Right! *face palm* I knew that, haha! Well that's not so bad then I guess, only I would be annoyed to pay tax on the car when I didn't drive it in Feb Does anyone know if Guards would be considerate if I mentioned that I had just bought the car? I would have the log book as proof of change of ownership.

Guy:Incognito

coco_lola wrote: »

Right! *face palm* I knew that, haha! Well that's not so bad then I guess, only I would be annoyed to pay tax on the car when I didn't drive it in Feb Does anyone know if Guards would be considerate if I mentioned that I had just bought the car? I would have the log book as proof of change of ownership.

The Gards dont care either way. They are only signign to say they witnessed you claiming it was off the road. So that if your caught lieing you've done so officially. They are not confirming it actually was off the road.

coco_lola

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

The Gards dont care either way. They are only signign to say they witnessed you claiming it was off the road. So that if your caught lieing you've done so officially. They are not confirming it actually was off the road.

Sorry, what I meant was if I had the "off the road" form, with the log book, and was stopped on my way to Limerick to tax the car. It appears that there are some various opinions on whether you can tax in any office or not. Think I'll give them a ring tomorrow