Taxing a commercial vehicle without a VAT number

Thinker40

If you are a legitimate business you will have registered a business name with the CRO.

That's the only verification you need to tax a commercial vehicle.

If you are being asked for other details/higher proof then its an over officious official.

randy hickey

Thinker40 wrote: »

If you are a legitimate business you will have registered a business name with the CRO.

That's the only verification you need to tax a commercial vehicle.

If you are being asked for other details/higher proof then its an over officious official.

You can be a legitimate business as a Sole Trader and you do not have to register with the CRO, as long as you are trading under your own name.

68 lost souls

If you are on the SW then obviously you are not self employed or have a business so therefore you are not entitled to a commercial tax.

Transporting a bouncing castle between your own family isn't a business just like I can't use the taxi lane because I give a lift to family members or I can't use an OAPs discount because what I'm buying is fe my grandad.

Now if you want to setup your own business and come off the social welfare you can tax it commercially but then our probably losing more money than you are taxing it privately.

shebzie

I don't want to set up any business I would just like to hang onto my van for dogs and for transport of a family castle from time to time until work picks back up so I can come off social welfare but at this stage it's getting me noware so ill stick to my car and sell the van and buy a small trailer for dogs

shebzie

shebzie wrote: »

I don't want to set up any business I would just like to hang onto my van for dogs and for transport of a family castle from time to time until work picks back up so I can come off social welfare but at this stage it's getting me noware so ill stick to my car and sell the van and buy a small trailer for dogs

Personally I wouldn't give in to them so easily.

corkgsxr

corktina wrote: »

Yep, if you are willing to lie on a official form. witnessed by a Gard. I think a false declaration is quite a serious offence.

Are you saying you only use you van for commercial purposes.

Never popped down to the shops?

Threw the golf clubs in the back?

Moved house, picked up a new table etc

Strictly by the law that's not allowed either and your using it illegally

corktina

yeah, I did all that and more. Thing is , now they are tightening up on it

corkgsxr

corktina wrote: »

yeah, I did all that and more. Thing is , now they are tightening up on it

I do 300 odd miles a week round cork city and suburbs and Iv found no evidence of it.

corktina

corktina wrote: »

yeah, I did all that and more. Thing is , now they are tightening up on it

I know loads of people with commercially taxed vehicles (mostly crew cabs and 4x4's) for either semi private use (farmers mostly) or totally private use (commuting etc) and never have I heard of a single problem.

Chimaera

The tightening up seems to be happening at the tax office rather than on the road. If the guys in the motor tax offices are doing things right then the Gardaí just have to worry about the vehicle having a tax disk that's in date.

Like many things where regulations are tightened up there will be a period of time over which experiences vary but ultimately I'd expect that it'll be difficult to get commercial tax on a vehicle that's not used at least in part for commercial purposes.

corktina

Exactly. If you don't have a VAT no,you have to sign a declaration that you will only use the vehicle commercially and get it stamped by the Gards. A false declaration is a whle different ball game.

Tigger

shebzie wrote: »

Why should I I'm only resonly on sw If I start back next week or next month can i get my money back that I pay private when I'm going comercial again.

just register as self employed

Del2005

corktina wrote: »

Exactly. If you don't have a VAT no,you have to sign a declaration that you will only use the vehicle commercially and get it stamped by the Gards. A false declaration is a whle different ball game.

Do you not have to sign the form for commercial use only regaurdless of having a VAT number or not?

Chimaera wrote: »

The tightening up seems to be happening at the tax office rather than on the road. If the guys in the motor tax offices are doing things right then the Gardaí just have to worry about the vehicle having a tax disk that's in date.

Like many things where regulations are tightened up there will be a period of time over which experiences vary but ultimately I'd expect that it'll be difficult to get commercial tax on a vehicle that's not used at least in part for commercial purposes.

They start in the office and once they have all the private users on the correct tax rate, people without businesses/farms, then the Gardaí will start cracking down on the road, there's too much revenue being lost for the current situation to continue, and start lifting vans being used privately.

corkgsxr

They were threatening it a few years back but how can you prove where people are going or not.

Officer I'm checking out a job in bishopstown.

What is he gonna do follow you there and make sure you are?

Or

Coming home from a job.

What are they gonna do ask ya to bring them back to the job to confirm?

corktina

corktina wrote: »

Exactly. If you don't have a VAT no,you have to sign a declaration that you will only use the vehicle commercially and get it stamped by the Gards. A false declaration is a whle different ball game.

Or a heard number which is a handy enough way for most out the country.

corkgsxr wrote: »

They were threatening it a few years back but how can you prove where people are going or not.

Officer I'm checking out a job in bishopstown.

What is he gonna do follow you there and make sure you are?

Or

Coming home from a job.

What are they gonna do ask ya to bring them back to the job to confirm?

Or why are you driving this time at night in your good clothes

"Sure isn't there a cow calving, rushing to deal with it now"

corktina

corkgsxr wrote: »

They were threatening it a few years back but how can you prove where people are going or not.

Officer I'm checking out a job in bishopstown.

What is he gonna do follow you there and make sure you are?

Or

Coming home from a job.

What are they gonna do ask ya to bring them back to the job to confirm?

you do get that's not what they are doing do you? They are asking you to declare before you tax it that you will only use it for commercial purposes.

Sir Arthur Daley

You would want to be taking the piss to be pulled like going to a wedding with the crew cab jeep all dressed up with the inlaws in the back seat.

corktina

corktina wrote: »

you do get that's not what they are doing do you? They are asking you to declare before you tax it that you will only use it for commercial purposes.

So what? As I said before nobody (including myself) cared about declaring cars off the road that they were driving everyday so why would they care about this declaration?

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

You would want to be taking the piss to be pulled like going to a wedding with the crew cab jeep all dressed up with the inlaws in the back seat.

Pretty standard practice, plenty of farmers using crew cabs as their family car.

Chimaera

There's always going to be some leeway for private use, it's a simple reality for most people that have vans that they'll use it for their own purposes outside of business time. I don't think any reasonable person could have an issue with that.

What the new guidelines mean is that you need to demonstrate to the motor tax people that the vehicle is being used regularly for commercial purposes. It's basically closing the loophole that owning a van meant you could pay commercial tax regardless of how it's used.

The core issue is that people are availing of a special rate provided to help business owners when they're not entitled to, and that increases the cost for everyone else. As much as we might like to think we're getting back at a government that's putting everyone over a barrel (and they are in a lot of cases), in reality tax evasion further increases the burden placed on everyone else, because the government are now closing a larger gap in the finances. Same way a business can't just dismiss losses from a bad debtor - if they don't get paid by someone, then the loss has to be passed on in higher charges to everyone else.

corktina

That's the people they are targeting alright, but there is no leeway. You aren't supposed to use the van privately at all and the important thing is you will be setting yourself up if you sign a declaration and then use the van privately.

Del2005

Chimaera wrote: »

There's always going to be some leeway for private use, it's a simple reality for most people that have vans that they'll use it for their own purposes outside of business time. I don't think any reasonable person could have an issue with that.

What the new guidelines mean is that you need to demonstrate to the motor tax people that the vehicle is being used regularly for commercial purposes. It's basically closing the loophole that owning a van meant you could pay commercial tax regardless of how it's used.

The core issue is that people are availing of a special rate provided to help business owners when they're not entitled to, and that increases the cost for everyone else. As much as we might like to think we're getting back at a government that's putting everyone over a barrel (and they are in a lot of cases), in reality tax evasion further increases the burden placed on everyone else, because the government are now closing a larger gap in the finances. Same way a business can't just dismiss losses from a bad debtor - if they don't get paid by someone, then the loss has to be passed on in higher charges to everyone else.

According to the law there was never any leeway for private use. What happened was, like most Irish laws, it wasn't enforced so everyone assumed it was OK to lie and use a commercially taxed vehicle for private use. Now that they are starting to clamp down on the tax evasion of commercial vehicles being used privately people are upset thinking that they introduced a new process when all they've done is enforce the current law. In the huge thread when they originally started enforcement it's been posted that several large companies always had their vans on private tax.

corkgsxr

corktina wrote: »

you do get that's not what they are doing do you? They are asking you to declare before you tax it that you will only use it for commercial purposes.

corktina wrote: »

That's the people they are targeting alright, but there is no leeway. You aren't supposed to use the van privately at all and the important thing is you will be setting yourself up if you sign a declaration and then use the van privately.

My point is after you sign the declaration they need to catch you using it for private use to do Feck all about it. And it's not feasible to decide if people are or aren't at that particular time using it or not commercially

corktina

Can be fairly obvious, perhaps if you had the kids with you or you were at the races or the Beach.

Del2005

Del2005 wrote: »

According to the law there was never any leeway for private use. What happened was, like most Irish laws, it wasn't enforced so everyone assumed it was OK to lie and use a commercially taxed vehicle for private use. Now that they are starting to clamp down on the tax evasion of commercial vehicles being used privately people are upset thinking that they introduced a new process when all they've done is enforce the current law. In the huge thread when they originally started enforcement it's been posted that several large companies always had their vans on private tax.

From my experience people thought you were required to tax it commercially. I can remember people who were taxing their small engined vans privately to avoid the nct and doe and we were always wondering if they would get in trouble as it's a commercial vehicle so should have commercial tax etc. if it wasn't for the motors section I would still not know that technically you aren't supposed to use a commercially taxed vehicle for private use, it's the only place I've seen it discussed.

That said knowing it wouldn't make me think twice about having commercial tax for private use. I plan on picking up a commercial 4x4 as a second car at some point and there is no notion it will see anything but commercial tax, we have a farm so I'll have no problem taxing it.

corktina wrote: »

Can be fairly obvious, perhaps if you had the kids with you or you were at the races or the Beach.

Picking them up on your way between jobs. It's never going to be enforced anyway as it's more or less impossible to prove without far more effort than its worth. It's also totally unreasonable to even attempt to try and enforce totally commercial use.

Tigger

corktina wrote: »

That's the people they are targeting alright, but there is no leeway. You aren't supposed to use the van privately at all and the important thing is you will be setting yourself up if you sign a declaration and then use the van privately.

i'm a flooring contractor and i've a suv which i use day to day
a simple "i'm going to give a presentation" would deal with any of this

the clamp down is so only commercial people get commercial tax

CiniO

corkgsxr wrote: »

Are you saying you only use you van for commercial purposes.

Never popped down to the shops?

Threw the golf clubs in the back?

Moved house, picked up a new table etc

Strictly by the law that's not allowed either and your using it illegally

I don't think there is any law prohibiting anyone to use commercially taxed vehicle which is being used normally for carrying goods for business purposes, to be used occasionally also for private purposes.

Therefore those "goods only declarations" which some motor tax offices require, doesn't seem to have any grounds in law.

corkgsxr

CiniO wrote: »

I don't think there is any law prohibiting anyone to use commercially taxed vehicle which is being used normally for carrying goods for business purposes, to be used occasionally also for private purposes.

Therefore those "goods only declarations" which some motor tax offices require, doesn't seem to have any grounds in law.

As far as I know it specifically says it can be used only used for commercial proposes.

bigroad

I know someone with a commercialy taxed jeep ,the owner of the jeep signed the declaration for commercial use but he has open drive insurance on it.Some of his friends borrow the jeep from time to time.
The thing is they didnt sign the declaration so does that mean they are breaking the goods only use if going about their own private use eg,going to the dump or going to the diy ect.

CiniO

corkgsxr wrote: »

As far as I know it specifically says it can be used only used for commercial proposes.

It doesn't.

Have a look:
This is definition from MOTOR VEHICLE (DUTIES AND LICENCES) ACT 2013 of vehicles which can be taxed under "commercial vehicle" tax class.

5. Vehicles (including tricycles weighing more than 500 kilograms unladen) constructed or adapted for use and used for the conveyance of goods or burden of any other description in the course of trade or business (including agriculture and the performance by a local or public authority of its functions) and vehicles constructed or adapted for use and used for the conveyance of a machine, workshop, contrivance or implement by or in which goods being conveyed by such vehicles are processed or manufactured while the vehicles are in motion:

Is says clearly they must be used for conveyance of goods in the course of trade or business, but it doesn't say anywhere that they can be used only for this purpose.

For comparison have a look at definition of vehicles which can be taxed as hearse, taxi or hackney, sourced from the same law act.

(a) any vehicle which is used as a hearse and for no other purpose,

(b) any vehicle (excluding a taxi) which is used as a small public service vehicle within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1961 and for no other purpose,

(c) any vehicle which is fitted with a taximeter and is lawfully used as a street service vehicle within the meaning of the Road Traffic Act 1961 and for purposes incidental to such use and for no other purpose,

As you can see here, is says clearly that those vehicle can not be used for any other purpose than listed.
Nothing like that is said above in definition of vehicles liable to be taxed as commercial.

So conclusion is fairly simple - there is no law saying that commercially taxed vehicles can be used only for commercial carrying of goods.

Below link to the act:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2013/en/act/pub/0009/print.htmlhttp://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2013/en/act/pub/0009/print.html

bigroad

Are they saying that a taxi ,which is on cheap psv tax can also be used for private use and a lot of them are anyway.
They cant have one law for psv and another for commercially taxed vehicles.