Nonsenseness of new SORD system.

CiniO

I'm going to present my opinion about the "off road declarations" system that was introduced last year.

IMO this system is completely pointless and causes horrendous amount of doubts and complications for everyone, for goal which could be achieved way easier, simpler and cheaper.

We can all see (even on this forum) how many doubts and complications this system cause. There is no week without at least few threads of people that got caught trying to do things right, but didn't manage to.
System is botched copy of UK system.
Main issues:
1. You have 10 days to declare newly bough car off the road, but you need your VRC to do it, while receiving VRC usually takes longer that that.
2. There is a big loophole, allowing people not to pay tax anyway by just switching ownership of the car.
3. People need to remember to declare vehicle in time. Not everything can be done online, which might be additional trouble for some people- especially those who are abroad.
4. Lot's of beaurocracy about the system, and even people who run it (motortax office employees) very often don't even know how system works..

In general there's plenty of flaws in that system which make it quite uneffective, and horrendously inconvienant for genuine people.


So in short.

In current system car can be in 3 states:
1. Taxed
2. Untaxed and undeclared off the road.
3. Untaxed and declared off the road.

In case 1. it's all fine.
In case 2. you are not legally allowed to drive a car, but there are not really any heavy fines forseen for that case. In most cases driver get's fined 60 quid for non displaying tax disc. So people can drive like this forever, and at the end (or when caught) they can change ownership of the vehicle to avoid paying tax due.
In case 3. people should not drive, as heavy fines can be due (for making false declaration). But only what can stop people from driving cars declared off the road, are roadside checks or ANPR detecting them.


Now, this is all quite complicated - unnecesserily.

Why can't we have simple system, where there would be no declarations at all. Vehicle could be only be in two states.
1. Taxed
2. Non-taxed.

Once vehicle tax expires, vehicle is not taxed anymore, and can't be used legally on the road. If someone decides to use untaxed vehicle on the road, and get's caught, he should be issued very heavy fine (couple grand, possibly vehicle seizure, etc).

And that's all.
That system would be way simpler, way cheaper, and more effective as current one, as there would be no loopholes.

Can anyone give any arguments, why such simple and effective system couldn't be in place?

Marcusm

CiniO wrote: »

I'm going to present my opinion about the "off road declarations" system that was introduced last year.

IMO this system is completely pointless and causes horrendous amount of doubts and complications for everyone, for goal which could be achieved way easier, simpler and cheaper.

We can all see (even on this forum) how many doubts and complications this system cause. There is no week without at least few threads of people that got caught trying to do things right, but didn't manage to.
System is botched copy of UK system.
Main issues:
1. You have 10 days to declare newly bough car off the road, but you need your VRC to do it, while receiving VRC usually takes longer that that.
2. There is a big loophole, allowing people not to pay tax anyway by just switching ownership of the car.
3. People need to remember to declare vehicle in time. Not everything can be done online, which might be additional trouble for some people- especially those who are abroad.
4. Lot's of beaurocracy about the system, and even people who run it (motortax office employees) very often don't even know how system works..

In general there's plenty of flaws in that system which make it quite uneffective, and horrendously inconvienant for genuine people.


So in short.

In current system car can be in 3 states:
1. Taxed
2. Untaxed and undeclared off the road.
3. Untaxed and declared off the road.

In case 1. it's all fine.
In case 2. you are not legally allowed to drive a car, but there are not really any heavy fines forseen for that case. In most cases driver get's fined 60 quid for non displaying tax disc. So people can drive like this forever, and at the end (or when caught) they can change ownership of the vehicle to avoid paying tax due.
In case 3. people should not drive, as heavy fines can be due (for making false declaration). But only what can stop people from driving cars declared off the road, are roadside checks or ANPR detecting them.


Now, this is all quite complicated - unnecesserily.

Why can't we have simple system, where there would be no declarations at all. Vehicle could be only be in two states.
1. Taxed
2. Non-taxed.

Once vehicle tax expires, vehicle is not taxed anymore, and can't be used legally on the road. If someone decides to use untaxed vehicle on the road, and get's caught, he should be issued very heavy fine (couple grand, possibly vehicle seizure, etc).

And that's all.
That system would be way simpler, way cheaper, and more effective as current one, as there would be no loopholes.

Can anyone give any arguments, why such simple and effective system couldn't be in place?

The UK system is

1. taxed
2. SORN'd
3. Neither taxed nor SORN'd

In the event of three, a fine automatically follows irrespective of whether the car is on the road or not. This encourages compliance.

The fact that everything can be done online or else at a post office (for tax) makes it much simpler as no issue of having to queue at a limited number of offices. It would be nice if DTTAS or whoever has responsibility has a clear action plan through to a final all encompassing solution but I doubt it.

CiniO

Marcusm wrote: »

The UK system is

1. taxed
2. SORN'd
3. Neither taxed nor SORN'd

In the event of three, a fine automatically follows irrespective of whether the car is on the road or not. This encourages compliance.

The fact that everything can be done online or else at a post office (for tax) makes it much simpler as no issue of having to queue at a limited number of offices. It would be nice if DTTAS or whoever has responsibility has a clear action plan through to a final all encompassing solution but I doubt it.

UK system also doesn't seem to be that good.

I just can't really understand the purpose of those declarations.
All what's stopping people from driving cars declared SORN(SORD) on the road (either in UK or Ireland) is heavy fines if caught - for making false declaration.

Why not just scrap it all, and issue the same heavy fines for just driving untaxed car.
Much simpler, but the same effective.

Stheno

The dept of the environment website states for newly bought cars

http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/MotorTax/QA-DeclaringaVehicleOffTheRoad/#Q14

Q14. I’ve just bought a vehicle – how can I make a declaration that I intend to keep it off the road for a while?

A14. If you have just bought a new vehicle or just acquired a second hand one and do not intend to use it immediately, you will have ten days from the date of purchase (as specified in the registration document or the notification of transfer of vehicle ownership) to furnish a declaration of non-use. In that case, the declaration will commence from the first day of the month in which the sale takes place, or the first day of the month of registration in the case of new vehicles.

Make sure you notify the seller that you are intending to declare the vehicle off the road and that you need him or her to ensure that the change of ownership is notified to the National Vehicle and Driver File as soon as possible.

That suggests to me that you don't need the reg. cert, but fill out the RF150 as normal?

So sign vrc, have seller post it, declare offroad within ten days using form RF150

CiniO

Stheno wrote: »

The dept of the environment website states for newly bought cars

http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/MotorTax/QA-DeclaringaVehicleOffTheRoad/#Q14



That suggests to me that you don't need the reg. cert, but fill out the RF150 as normal?

So sign vrc, have seller post it, declare offroad within ten days using form RF150

Sounds simple on paper.
But we had forum members here reporting this to be impossible.
Motor tax offices not accepting filled in RF150 form with missing VRC number (there is VRC number to be filled in on RF150 form), or just simply because change of ownership didn't go through in 10 days.
Either way - it doesn't really work...

And that's my whole point - why make things complicated, when they can be made simple and more effective without any declarations system?

Stheno

CiniO wrote: »

Sounds simple on paper.
But we had forum members here reporting this to be impossible.
Motor tax offices not accepting filled in RF150 form with missing VRC number (there is VRC number to be filled in on RF150 form), or just simply because change of ownership didn't go through in 10 days.
Either way - it doesn't really work...

And that's my whole point - why make things complicated, when they can be made simple and more effective without any declarations system?

That's the system we did have, with no enforcement it was a joke.

CiniO

Stheno wrote: »

That's the system we did have, with no enforcement it was a joke.

As you say - it was not the system that was a problem.
It was lock of enforcement, and lack of heavy fines for not obeying the law.

IMHO even in old system retrospective declarations were not necessery.

All we needed was enforcement and heavy fines for those breaking the law (driving untaxed).

New system was introduced - but not much changed anyway considering there is still no enforcement, and on top of that new system has loopholes.

Way simpler was to keep old system (simplify it by scrapping all declarations) and start enforcing it.