Can we get a better "Declare car off-road" system by any chance?

Sh1tbag OToole

Just tried to declare a car off the road for the winter but the site won't let me. Tells me there are arrears even though I just paid them

The site looks like something from the mid 90's and says:

There are currently motor tax arrears due on this vehicle. Before declaring your vehicle off the road you must pay these arrears and tax your vehicle for a minimum of three months. To pay these amounts you can visit your local tax office, or follow the link below.

Who designed this sh1te? You have a narrow little window to declare a car off the road and if you don't use it you're caught for another 3 months. Similarly if you happen to forget in a years time because you are away in some other country and not thinking about the rustbucket you have in the shed back home you'll be caught again or be stuck with the change-owner-change-back procedure. What an absolute nuisance of a system!

The lad who came up with this semicretinous sytem and the person who made the website behind it could do with being repeatedly slapped in the face with a rotten trout for putting in such a p1ss poor effort

Stheno

When and how did you pay the arrears?

Sh1tbag OToole

Stheno wrote: »

When and how did you pay the arrears?

About 10 minutes before using the same mid 90's website

Stheno

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

About 10 minutes before using the same mid 90's website

Well it needs to be processed by the office, if you give it a business day or two it will get updated and then you can declare it off the road.

Sh1tbag OToole

Stheno wrote: »

Well it needs to be processed by the office, if you give it a business day or two it will get updated and then you can declare it off the road.

Will it let me do it straight away for October or will I have to sit there and wait for the first day of October to come'round?

CianRyan

Stheno wrote: »

Well it needs to be processed by the office, if you give it a business day or two it will get updated and then you can declare it off the road.

I think this is the point though.
If they can build a website, they can build a database and it shouldn't have to be processed by the office and certainly shouldn't have to take a day or two.

The whole process is a load of ****.

degsie

1st world problems, eh?

jca

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

Just tried to declare a car off the road for the winter but the site won't let me. Tells me there are arrears even though I just paid them

The site looks like something from the mid 90's and says:


Who designed this sh1te? You have a narrow little window to declare a car off the road and if you don't use it you're caught for another 3 months. Similarly if you happen to forget in a years time because you are away in some other country and not thinking about the rustbucket you have in the shed back home you'll be caught again or be stuck with the change-owner-change-back procedure. What an absolute nuisance of a system!

The lad who came up with this semicretinous sytem and the person who made the website behind it could do with being repeatedly slapped in the face with a rotten trout for putting in such a p1ss poor effort

I wouldn't call a month a narrow little window. If you declare the car off road for 12 months they send out a renewal notice in 12 months to allow you to re-declare the car off the road,hardly difficult tbh.

Stheno

CianRyan wrote: »

I think this is the point though.
If they can build a website, they can build a database and it shouldn't have to be processed by the office and certainly shouldn't have to take a day or two.

The whole process is a load of ****.

The site and system for paying tax online was built well before the off the road process, and probably hasn't been updated due to lack of investment in IT in recent years to be fair.

Sh1tbag OToole

jca wrote: »

I wouldn't call a month a narrow little window. If you declare the car off road for 12 months they send out a renewal notice in 12 months to allow you to re-declare the car off the road,hardly difficult tbh.

What's the point though? Why no 'until someone decides to tax it again' option? If you have a load of rustbuckets sitting around then you have to do it for each one. No need for renewal notices either if they just made the system a small bit more flexible

CianRyan

Stheno wrote: »

The site and system for paying tax online was built well before the off the road process, and probably hasn't been updated due to lack of investment in IT in recent years to be fair.

Lack of investment... I'd say you could honestly get a transition year student to build them a better website these days.

But that's exactly the problem, the website hasn't been updated in years and it can't keep up with the demands of the new features they've brought into the system.

jca

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

What's the point though? Why no 'until someone decides to tax it again' option? If you have a load of rustbuckets sitting around then you have to do it for each one. No need for renewal notices either if they just made the system a small bit more flexible

I agree there. There should be an option to declare permanently off road.

uck51js9zml2yt

It takes roughly 24 hours for the online system to update and synch with the national database.

Our tax system needs a total overhaul.
The idea of wiping thousands in arrears by "selling" the car is disastrous and abused left right and centre.
We should have the UK system of continuous taxation.

SORDs can be processed in the last month of the tax disc. 30 days inst that narrow a window.
Retrospective off the roads were done away with years ago....a rightly so imo.
you have 3 options to do it. Online (24x7), by post or in person....it's hardly that difficult to pick one.
If you send it in by post a bit early it will even be held for you until it can be processed.


Of course, if you don't like the system you can talk to your local legislator about changing it.:)

Greenmachine

Old system was clearly open to abuse. New system not great either. Help me out here do you declare the that you won't use the car on adhoc basis. Sometime you may not know how long you are going to keep a car off the road. Maybe you can't afford to run a car temporarily etc.

Sh1tbag OToole

Dorothy Shallow Rust wrote: »

Of course, if you don't like the system you can talk to your local legislator about changing it.:)

The local legislator is too busy having his chicken dinners inside in the Shelbourne and I doubt he'll take the time to even send a reply but sure I'll try it one day when I'm bored and nothing else to do

corglass

jca wrote: »

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

What's the point though? Why no 'until someone decides to tax it again' option? If you have a load of rustbuckets sitting around then you have to do it for each one. No need for renewal notices either if they just made the system a small bit more flexible

I agree there. There should be an option to declare permanently off road.

Definitely, need a permanently off the road option. This 12 month rubbish is very annoying if you've a car stored long term in a shed

savagethegoat

we need a system like the UK have. If your car is not taxed and not SORNd you get a fine in the post. If your car is not insured and not SORNd, you get a fine in the post. If an ANPR camera (an they have very many of them) picks you up , it will show if your tax/MoT/Insurance are up to date. Expect to have your collar felt.

Our system as designed to fail with built in loopholes. I'd be interested to know how many cars here are taxed but not NCTd (when they should be) and why there isn't an automatic system to pick up these cars and prosecute them. It should be impossible to tax an un NCTd car in these circumstances.

Sh1tbag OToole

savagethegoat wrote: »

we need a system like the UK have. If your car is not taxed and not SORNd you get a fine in the post. If your car is not insured and not SORNd, you get a fine in the post. If an ANPR camera (an they have very many of them) picks you up , it will show if your tax/MoT/Insurance are up to date. Expect to have your collar felt.

Our system as designed to fail with built in loopholes. I'd be interested to know how many cars here are taxed but not NCTd (when they should be) and why there isn't an automatic system to pick up these cars and prosecute them. It should be impossible to tax an un NCTd car in these circumstances.

I'd much prefer if there was no such thing as car tax, NCT or cameras spying on you everywhere like in the Youkay but the powers that be seem to love that kinda thing

savagethegoat

yes, we'd all prefer that and free shopping at the Supermarket too.

Sh1tbag OToole

savagethegoat wrote: »

yes, we'd all prefer that and free shopping at the Supermarket too.

I doubt that. A good few people actually love all that authoritarian sh1te

uck51js9zml2yt

Greenmachine wrote: »

Old system was clearly open to abuse. New system not great either. Help me out here do you declare the that you won't use the car on adhoc basis. Sometime you may not know how long you are going to keep a car off the road. Maybe you can't afford to run a car temporarily etc.

If you want to use a car legally that's declared off road, you need to tax it.
Taxing overrides the SORD and cancels it. A new declaration is then needed.

savagethegoat

To declare a car off the road you must do so before the tax runs out (or on purchase). You cannot declare an untaxed car off the road unless you just bought it. You would have to tax it first.

You can declare from memory that it will be off the road for 3 6 or 12 months , although why they chose to make that system, no one knows, as you can, as Tatranska says, tax it at anytime which cancels the SORD

JohnBoy26

savagethegoat wrote: »

To declare a car off the road you must do so before the tax runs out (or on purchase). You cannot declare an untaxed car off the road unless you just bought it. You would have to tax it first.

You can declare from memory that it will be off the road for 3 6 or 12 months , although why they chose to make that system, no one knows, as you can, as Tatranska says, tax it at anytime which cancels the SORD

The 3 months 6 months off the road declaration is a bit pointless imo. You can't declare a car off the road for less than 3 months yet if you declare it off the road for 3 months or more you can still tax it put it back on the road at any time you like. Why would anyone bother declaring a car off the road for less than the maximum of 12 months then.

There really should be no time limits on the declaration. Once a vehicle is declared off the road it shouldn't have to be redeclared of the road again when it hasn't been put back on the road.

Also if the apologists on here think the UK have a good system I'd think again tbh. They have made a bit of a mess of their system which also makes importing UK cars to this country a lot more difficult as a car has to be relaxed every time its sold and no none resident owner can tax that car which makes the trip to the ferry very risky. For UK residents it's only another austerity measure.

amacca

IMO the reason you can't declare a car off the road indefinitely and then tax it when you ant to put it back on the road is primarily because its a revenue collection device....human nature being what it is a certain percentage will forget to redeclare it every 12 months and then be liable for arrears etc

A lot of the new rues/regulations are quite simply revenue collection and possibly job creation measures (fairly depressing, not necessarily stable jobs either) dressed up as improving safety and standards on the roads.

disclaimer: it could also be because they are cretinous morons

jca

When the 12 months have elapsed they send out a renewal notice, go online declare it off road for another 12 months, hardly difficult in fairness.

737max

I've yet to receive one of those renewal reminders but I live overseas so I guess I don't matter.

JohnBoy26

jca wrote: »

When the 12 months have elapsed they send out a renewal notice, go online declare it off road for another 12 months, hardly difficult in fairness.

There isn't much sense to it though.

uck51js9zml2yt

jca wrote: »

When the 12 months have elapsed they send out a renewal notice, go online declare it off road for another 12 months, hardly difficult in fairness.

You'd be surprised how many people don't have internet access, aren't computer literate and who can't read or write....the latter is scary!

jca

Dorothy Shallow Rust wrote: »

You'd be surprised how many people don't have internet access, aren't computer literate and who can't read or write....the latter is scary!

Hand they renewal notice to someone who can read/ have Internet access and ask them to sort it out. Actually the car I'm declaring off road every 12 months belongs to someone just like that.

JohnBoy26

jca wrote: »

Hand they renewal notice to someone who can read/ have Internet access and ask them to sort it out. Actually the car I'm declaring off road every 12 months belongs to someone just like that.

But why have a system where a person has to do that every 12 months? What's the point of it?

unkel

Scrap all this nonsense that requires an army of overpaid council workers to administer it. No more motor tax, €0.25 added to every liter of fuel. Simple and efficient, costs nothing to implement, costs nothing to collect the money, everybody is 100% compliant

And of course this is the only fair system where everyone pays for what they use / what they pollute

jca

unkel wrote: »

Scrap all this nonsense that requires an army of overpaid council workers to administer it. No more motor tax, €0.25 added to every liter of fuel. Simple and efficient, costs nothing to implement, costs nothing to collect the money, everybody is 100% compliant

And of course this is the only fair system where everyone pays for what they use / what they pollute

I agree with you but would it stop at 25c? No more bargain luxobarges either, big engined pre 08 cars would rise in value fairly rapidly.

uck51js9zml2yt

unkel wrote: »

Scrap all this nonsense that requires an army of overpaid council workers to administer it. No more motor tax, €0.25 added to every liter of fuel. Simple and efficient, costs nothing to implement, costs nothing to collect the money, everybody is 100% compliant

And of course this is the only fair system where everyone pays for what they use / what they pollute

The newer staff are certainly not overpaid. And this year is the first time in 10 years the council's have hired staff. I'll let you account for retirements etc and I'm sure you get the picture

bear1

We had a good system but people abused the living **** out of it.
They made the new system obviously a pain in the hole to stop people taking advantage.
Id rather they'd create a system where you don't need so much paper stuck to the windscreen.

jca

bear1 wrote: »

We had a good system but people abused the living **** out of it.
They made the new system obviously a pain in the hole to stop people taking advantage.
Id rather they'd create a system where you don't need so much paper stuck to the windscreen.

Yea but Ireland being Ireland if you didn't have to put a disc on the window revenue from car tax would plummet, as it has done in the uk since they went disc-less. Tbh if I lived in the back of beyond with little chance of meeting an ANPR camera I wouldn't bother taxing either.

unkel

Dorothy Shallow Rust wrote: »

The newer staff are certainly not overpaid. And this year is the first time in 10 years the council's have hired staff. I'll let you account for retirements etc and I'm sure you get the picture

Any system that requires paid staff to administer it and yields terribly low compliance should be abolished if it can be replaced by a 100% efficient and effective system costing nothing

But yes, I agree with you. All those expensive council staff will need to be made redundant and that will cost a fortune. But in the long run you and me the taxpayers will benefit.

I can't wait for the LUAS / DART / Trains to be driven by computers and not greedy human drivers, but I guess that's for another thread in another forum altogether

Sh1tbag OToole

unkel wrote: »

Any system that requires paid staff to administer it and yields terribly low compliance should be abolished if it can be replaced by a 100% efficient and effective system costing nothing

But yes, I agree with you. All those expensive council staff will need to be made redundant and that will cost a fortune. But in the long run you and me the taxpayers will benefit.

I can't wait for the LUAS / DART / Trains to be driven by computers and not greedy human drivers, but I guess that's for another thread in another forum altogether

In the end we'll just have one really fat guy sitting on his chair who hasn't stirred for years who owns all the computers that took over from the greedy humans and that one guy will own everything.

Then you'll have 5 million paupers waiting for him to pay his 40% tax so they can get their dole and slowly give it all back to him over the course of a year. This one fat guy will have nothing left to spend his money on

traco

I can't understand why it's restricted to 3,6,12 month options. Stupid given that it's automated.
Be nice to be able to tax my summer jammer for an extra month or a month early if the weather was nice. Be another few bob for them, 150-160 extra per year maybe it's not worth their while or the piece of paper costs too much????

savagethegoat

unkel wrote: »

Any system that requires paid staff to administer it and yields terribly low compliance should be abolished if it can be replaced by a 100% efficient and effective system costing nothing

But yes, I agree with you. All those expensive council staff will need to be made redundant and that will cost a fortune. But in the long run you and me the taxpayers will benefit.

I can't wait for the LUAS / DART / Trains to be driven by computers and not greedy human drivers, but I guess that's for another thread in another forum altogether

you don't need to make them redundant, there's plenty of things that Council staff could be doing that are motor related. There's pothole filling for starters.

amacca

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

But why have a system where a person has to do that every 12 months? What's the point of it?

Like I said I think its revenue collection. A certain percentage will forget to redeclare and be liable for arrears....its a built in extra percentage of revenue setting up that way rather than allow you to declare it off road indefinitely and then pay tax when you want to put it back on the road.

What the chirpy optimists who claim its hardly difficult forget is some people have lots of things to do and the more things you have to do the more likely it is some of them will be forgotten

jca

amacca wrote: »

Like I said I think its revenue collection. A certain percentage will forget to redeclare and be liable for arrears....its a built in extra percentage of revenue setting up that way rather than allow you to declare it off road indefinitely and then pay tax when you want to put it back on the road.

What the chirpy optimists who claim its hardly difficult forget is some people have lots of things to do and the more things you have to do the more likely it is some of them will be forgotten

Lovely attitude there. We all have things to do including 30 days to go online to declare a vehicle off road, even with your exceptionally busy busy lifestyle ( much busier than the chirpy optimists) you could manage to do it or maybe get a less busy more chirpy relative to do it for you....

JohnBoy26

jca wrote: »

Lovely attitude there. We all have things to do including 30 days to go online to declare a vehicle off road, even with your exceptionally busy busy lifestyle ( much busier than the chirpy optimists) you could manage to do it or maybe get a less busy more chirpy relative to do it for you....

You can be an apologist for this system all you like but It doesnt take away from the fact that the time limit on the off the road declaration is plain stupid.

unkel

savagethegoat wrote: »

you don't need to make them redundant, there's plenty of things that Council staff could be doing that are motor related. There's pothole filling for starters.

Funny you mention that. When the bin collection here in Lucan was privatised, some of the council workers didn't want to join the commercial company, even though they were allowed to keep their cosy public servant t&c's and their hugely inflated wages...

A few months later and I regularly saw them picking rubbish from the road side, Lucan has been a cleaner place ever since

amacca

jca wrote: »

Lovely attitude there. We all have things to do including 30 days to go online to declare a vehicle off road, even with your exceptionally busy busy lifestyle ( much busier than the chirpy optimists) you could manage to do it or maybe get a less busy more chirpy relative to do it for you....

including that and million an one other things ..point being it just isn't necessary and its irritating doing things that are unnecessary when there are other more satisfying or productive things for my life I could be doing than wasting that time on a needlessly clunky pen pushing bureaucrats wet dream of a system....why not make it user friendly and collect the tax that has been decided is due rather than be sneaky about it generating extra revenue by relying on peoples forgetfulness to annually leech a couple of more euro out of the tax base.

you must have optimistic and chirpy relatives with a can do attitude willing to do you favours...I know where mine would tell me to go if I asked them to do things that are nothing to do with them even if it shouldn't be anything to do with me either (if we had a more sensibly designed system in terms of fairness - its well designed if your after max profits)......I wonder would they mow your lawn for you or do your tax returns (and that one is actually necessary)...does their generosity of spirit only extend to blood relatives? could I get their numbers?

jca

amacca wrote: »

including that and million an one other things ..point being it just isn't necessary and its irritating doing things that are unnecessary when there are other more satisfying or productive things for my life I could be doing than wasting that time on a needlessly clunky pen pushing bureaucrats wet dream of a system....why not make it user friendly and collect the tax that has been decided is due rather than be sneaky about it generating extra revenue by relying on peoples forgetfulness to annually leech a couple of more euro out of the tax base.

you must have optimistic and chirpy relatives with a can do attitude willing to do you favours...I know where mine would tell me to go if I asked them to do things that are nothing to do with them even if it shouldn't be anything to do with me either (if we had a more sensibly designed system in terms of fairness - its well designed if your after max profits)......I wonder would they mow your lawn for you or do your tax returns (and that one is actually necessary)...does their generosity of spirit only extend to blood relatives? could I get their numbers?

All this ^^^^ over a lousy piece of paper that at most takes 10 mins to go on line and tick a box... If you'd bother to read my earlier posts I'm the one who does this simple box tick for a relative. Grass cutting,tax returns?? None of your business really....

bear1

This thread took a turn.

amacca

jca wrote: »

All this ^^^^ over a lousy piece of paper that at most takes 10 mins to go on line and tick a box... If you'd bother to read my earlier posts I'm the one who does this simple box tick for a relative. Grass cutting,tax returns?? None of your business really....

look I think you're really not getting all the point here imo .... or wilfully disregarding it with a splash of obfuscation.

forcing people into having to renew it every year means a certain percentage will forget and then be liable for taxing vehicles that they wanted off the road...you can't declare it off the road once and then pay tax when you want to reinstate the vehicle to road use....why not do you think?

furthermore if you do forget to redeclare (which could be perfectly understandable for lots of reasons imo) you then have to pay a full years tax on some vehicles before declaring it off road again......not to put too fine a point on it but what a load of bolox.....why not just pay a portion of it related to the portion of the year you are late declaring it offroad if the powers that be insist on not letting you declare it offroad indefinitely....the system must be a massive pain in the hole for people with a number of vehicles off road with different beginning dates for when they initially declared off road don't you think?

I believe if something like this were to occur in say sales it would be called sharp practice....which begs the question why you are defending the current system? I have yet to see a poster defend the current system on its merits, why is that do you think?.......

(As for the relatives, you brought them up and if you bothered to read my post you 'd probably see I was only responding to your suggestion I should get relative to do it for me....and honestly I really don't want their contact details but I presume you already knew that...at least I hope you did for your sake)

Anyway can you answer me this, why do you think the current way of doing things is superior to say being allowed to declare the vehicle off the road indefinitely?

and perhaps as a follow up: if the current system turns out to not be superior to the above (except maybe as an extra revenue generation exercise) why should I waste even ten minutes of my life doing this annual chore and have yet another thing to remind myself to do on top of the other bull**** I'm already subjected to due to the way things are going (if you'd like me to elaborate here I'd be only too happy to fill you in on the unnecessary ever ballooning bureaucratic, box ticking red tape time wasting nonsense that seems to be more and more part of doing business nowadays)

And yes, all this for ten minutes a year, I feel very strongly about this type of crap and I wish people would wake up to how their lives are being dictated to them and even stronger about standing up to people who advocate for what I consider to be a type of bullying that shouldn't take place in a true democracy.

uck51js9zml2yt

amacca wrote: »

And yes, all this for ten minutes a year, I feel very strongly about this type of crap and I wish people would wake up to how their lives are being dictated to them and even stronger about standing up to people who advocate for what I consider to be a type of bullying that shouldn't take place in a true democracy.

I get the horrible feeling you really think this.
Why dont we add to the list...paying bills, paying taxes, filling up our fuel tanks:eek:

amacca

Dorothy Shallow Rust wrote: »

I get the horrible feeling you really think this.
Why dont we add to the list...paying bills, paying taxes, filling up our fuel tanks:eek:

Nah those are ok...they're a necessary part of living. I'm not saying we shouldn't have to work for a living or anything....I'm understand the idea of opt in systems and I know why a lot of things cannot be ideal but I really think the way the thing works now just isn't fair and the only way that changes is if enough people make noise about it - which is disappoiniting when you consider these things should really work to benefit (to use a hackneyed phrase) law abiding citizens but instead seem to be set up to squeeze as many euros out of their pockets as possible....the default position shouldn't be manipulate control and squeeze as much money out of them as possible - how about make them pay what they owe instead and be fair about it?

I also think I have a right to argue my position without being labelled a crank or a crackpot.

So yes I do believe I have a point with the above and a hell of a lot of other stuff.

But to get back to the point can anyone defend the current system on its merits?

uck51js9zml2yt

amacca wrote: »

Nah those are ok...they're a necessary part of living. I'm not saying we shouldn't have to work for a living or anything....I'm understand the idea of opt in systems and I know why a lot of things cannot be ideal.

I do believe I have a point with the above though and a hell of a lot of other stuff.

So to get back to the point can anyone defend the current system on its merits?

The only ones who have to justify it are the dept of transport. Have you asked them?

CiniO

We are arguing here what way should the off-road declaration system work, and at the same time, in other countries there are system without possibility to declare vehicle off the road at all.
F.e. Poland - you can't declare your vehicle off the road (unless it's HGV or BUS).