Commercial Vehicle Loophole closed?

CJhaughey

I have heard that the loophole where some vehicles are passed as being commercials while having rear seats and glass is to be closed.
I have wondered about the legality of the situation where a vehicle is supposed to be a commercial ie paying commercial tax and has an accident.
what is the story ?anyone know about this?

mike65

A goods vehicle which is converted with rear seats should have private insurance I think yet I know you can get commercial tax on a "domestic" 4x4 if you have it for business and it would be insured for commercial use.

As for a loophole being closed, I dunno.

Mike.

Eoin

I have wondered about the legality of the situation where a vehicle is supposed to be a commercial ie paying commercial tax and has an accident.

I would have thought that the insurance would be the issue here, not the road tax?

I have heard the loophole is being closed (not through any official channels). I think the most common cars / trucks that could use the loophole are the pickup / flatbed 4x4 cars you see all over the place (see attached pic). They do have a backseat - as uncomfortable as it gets, and a large area for tools etc which you can buy hard top covers for.

alias no.9

Any estate car can be taxed as a commercial. The tax loophole applied to VRT whereby 'crew cab' type vehicles had previoulsy been eligible for commercial rates of VRT once there was a dedicated load area seperated from the passenger accomodation by a fixed bulkhead. This was closed in 2003 afaik.

CJhaughey

I will elaborate.
I have a 4x4 Commercial , taxed and insured commerciallly. NO problem there.
My mate has a 4x4 w/passenger seats in the back and it is taxed commercially and insured privately. Le problem.
I have heard that the revenue are going to give people the options of :
a) converting said vehicle into a "proper" commercial with no glass and seat in the back.
b) Paying all the back tax at the private rate! ie over 2 litre tax rate.

alias no.9

Though it hasn't really been enforced, it's always been illegal to fit rear seats to a commercial vehicle without doing the full conversion to a passenger vehicle and declaring it to the revenue. VAT on commercial vehicles is 17.5% AFAIK compared to to 21% on passenger vehicles so revenue will want to make up their shortfall. The OMSP (Open Market Selling Price as used to calculate VRT) of commercial vehicles is lower than for an equivalent passenger vehicle and so revenue will want to make up the difference here too. The fact that its the revenue comissioners who're after him means it's not motor tax they're after because that's a function of the department of the environment through the county councils, however, it is possible that someone could be done for falsely declaring a private vehicle as a commercial vehicle by the DOE. My original point still stands though, it is possible to classify an estate car / station wagon with back seats and windows as a commercial for motor tax. Passenger 4x4's are considered to be estate cars.

lomb

i know a guy who owns a rolls royce that is taxed as a psv (hackney) and insured privately. he says its used for weddings lol

CJhaughey

I have reason to believe that the main county that has this issue is Cork.
My mates 4x4 didn't even have the seats removed and refitted, just passed as a commercial.
I was also told that the revenue commissioners made Toyota Ireland burn all the windows and seats from all the Landcruisers that they bring in as commercials.

Victor

I think this was a consultation thing (rare enough with revenue) that they were going to use the wheelbase as one of the criteria, together with cabin length -v- cargo length. Some of the manufacturers were contriving sizes to escape the rules.

stratos

I often wondered could you tax your 4.5 litre 2 seat roadster as commercial. As it has no seats or windows behind the drivers seat?

lomb

stratos wrote:

I often wondered could you tax your 4.5 litre 2 seat roadster as commercial. As it has no seats or windows behind the drivers seat?

u can tax it as a psv and use it for weedings lol only 80 euro i think in the region of anyway.

stratos

:d

Victor

lomb wrote:

u can tax it as a psv and use it for weedings lol only 80 euro i think in the region of anyway.

Well, if's a two seater, you could only do funerals and divorces.

alias no.9

lomb wrote:

u can tax it as a psv and use it for weedings lol only 80 euro i think in the region of anyway.

To do this, it has to go through a PSV test, very similar to an NCT except its done yearly and you're required to produce insurance documents that cover its use as a PSV.

CJhaughey

Yes you can tax a sports car as a commercial, My friend had a white Supra with the 3 litre twin turbo engine he had it commercially taxed.He had to make the small rear quarter lights blacked out though.