road tax in '60s and '70s

[nta16]

was it usual for 12 months road tax to be put on a new car by customer or seller or did some come with just 3 4 months road tax?

also was it possible then to buy more over 12 months road tax as a first road tax on the car, i.e. 12 months and x number of days, as it was later (now?)?

ETA: correct number of months

Edited by nta16 on Saturday 7th December 14:55

[Orcadian]

Hi,
I started riding and driving in 1965 and 66 respectively and you could pay only for 4 months or 12 (not 3) I was never in a position to buy a new car or bike back then but Road Fund Licence as it was correctly called then - the clue is in the name ROAD FUND and it was used to build and repair our infrastructure. You could choose to have 4 months with the price of your vehicle, or push to have 12 months. There was no system for adding a bit on at the beginning as now. So if you bought a vehicle on the 31st of a month, then tough luck, you lost that bit! They were rogues back then too!
When we started giving our money away to all and sundry BEFORE we had paid our way, they robbed the ROAD FUND (and gave it the title Vehicle Excise Duty) and gave it to undeserving causes - so we now have traffic hold-ups which also fills the Exchequers coffers as we sit with engines running and going nowhere, other that to the nearest garage to have broken springs replaced.
1st Rant of the day at 2 o'clock - a result!

Ian

[Magic919]

They stopped ring fencing the so-called Road Tax money in the 1930s though, way before 1965.

[nta16]

Ian,
thanks

sorry, it was my bad memory mixing up 4 months with quarterly

I do remember the terms Road Fund Licence (RFL) and Vehicle Excise Duty (VED)

and I did forget how emotive the term road tax is

Edited by nta16 on Saturday 7th December 14:46

[skeggysteve]

Back then the label of a bottle Guinness or a bit of paper with 'tax in post' written on work as a substitute for the real thing!

[Dogwatch]

Magic919 said:

They stopped ring fencing the so-called Road Tax money in the 1930s though, way before 1965.

I believe some bloke called Winston Churchill was the Chancellor that started the rot!

Back in the pre DVLA days it wasn't unknown for the impecunious to tax the car for four months then 'forget' to renew, leave it a month and then retax thus getting five months licence for four months tax - unless you got caught....

[DBSV8]

Orcadian said:

Hi,
I started riding and driving in 1965 and 66 respectively and you could pay only for 4 months or 12 (not 3) I was never in a position to buy a new car or bike back then but Road Fund Licence as it was correctly called then - the clue is in the name ROAD FUND and it was used to build and repair our infrastructure. You could choose to have 4 months with the price of your vehicle, or push to have 12 months. There was no system for adding a bit on at the beginning as now. So if you bought a vehicle on the 31st of a month, then tough luck, you lost that bit! They were rogues back then too!
When we started giving our money away to all and sundry BEFORE we had paid our way, they robbed the ROAD FUND (and gave it the title Vehicle Excise Duty) and gave it to undeserving causes - so we now have traffic hold-ups which also fills the Exchequers coffers as we sit with engines running and going nowhere, other that to the nearest garage to have broken springs replaced.
1st Rant of the day at 2 o'clock - a result!

Ian

I have the 1965 tax disc along with the current tax disc ,in the E-type its tax exempt anyway




cheers

Edited by DBSV8 on Sunday 8th December 01:11

[lowdrag]

In the 1990s I had the E-type on display and switched the current tax disc for the 1961 disc. Later, having forgotten to switch them back again, I was accosted in town by a very officious traffic warden with the comment "you have a lot of back tax to pay sir". He was being serious too, until I switched them back again. One does wonder.

[nta16]

lowdrag said:

In the 1990s I had the E-type on display and switched the current tax disc for the 1961 disc.

so it was a four month tax disc or do you mean it showed 1962 as a 12 month

[lowdrag]

IIRC the tax discs in the time wer optional. You could pay for 12 months (I remember £12 10/- per year) but whether it was three or four months I can't recall as I never taxed it for a shorter term than one year. This might help price things:-



And this:-

[mph1977]

Orcadian said:

Hi,
I started riding and driving in 1965 and 66 respectively and you could pay only for 4 months or 12 (not 3) I was never in a position to buy a new car or bike back then but Road Fund Licence as it was correctly called then - the clue is in the name ROAD FUND and it was used to build and repair our infrastructure. You could choose to have 4 months with the price of your vehicle, or push to have 12 months. There was no system for adding a bit on at the beginning as now. So if you bought a vehicle on the 31st of a month, then tough luck, you lost that bit! They were rogues back then too!
When we started giving our money away to all and sundry BEFORE we had paid our way, they robbed the ROAD FUND (and gave it the title Vehicle Excise Duty) and gave it to undeserving causes - so we now have traffic hold-ups which also fills the Exchequers coffers as we sit with engines running and going nowhere, other that to the nearest garage to have broken springs replaced.
1st Rant of the day at 2 o'clock - a result!

Ian

i see magic 919 has all ready pointed out that the 'Road Fund' and associated hypothetication of income from VED ended in the 1930s.

[nta16]

lowdrag said:

IIRC the tax discs in the time wer optional. You could pay for 12 months (I remember £12 10/- per year) but whether it was three or four months I can't recall as I never taxed it for a shorter term than one year. This might help price things:-

great stuff, thanks

Orcadian has already reminded me that it was 12 months or 4 months

and I forgot, although he's only just told me, that the tax run until 31st December and not into the next calendar year (sorry)I'm wrong again! see later

so a 1961 car would have originally had a 1961 tax disc if taxed in Jan '61

ETA: bits I'd messed up

Edited by nta16 on Sunday 8th December 17:09

[Orcadian]

Hey, you've opened a can of worms here (hope they are own brand and not bought from 'Take your Extended Store and Clear Off our island') I think you may have read something into my original reply which was not there. As far as I know, you could tax even a new vehicle anytime in the year - but it was always backdated to the beginning of that month - not to the beginning of the year. So a 1961 vehicle could only have a 12 month disc showing 1961 if it was physically taxed in Jan 61 (when it would expire in DEC 61, otherwise it would show expiry in 1962.

Ian

[nta16]

sorry yes I did misunderstand, obviously I didn't give it enough thought

[nta16]

anyone on here buy a brand new car in the '60s or '70s and only put, or have, 4 months tax on it?

[lowdrag]

I think that it was more the dealers who sold you a car taxed for four months as part of the deal rather than the buyers. I certainly knew someone who got diddled by a dealer and thought it would be taxed for a year and not four months. If you could afford a new car then you could afford to tax it for a twelvemonth if you were paying yourself.

[nta16]

yes I agree but having deal with the general public for decades I can tell you that some of them can be very funny devils - or perhaps they have a good reason to only pay for 4 months

it took me a while to find out that I didn't need to lose weeks and days of road tax until the info was volunteered I think by a car salesman

and when I told a mate I was trading-in a car to a dealership he told me to make sure to remove the tax disc and claim the money back for myself

the last new car my wife bought they'd formalised the arrangement, I noticed the salesman had been slack with his paperwork and hadn't ticked the box to get the tax disc on her trade-in so I removed the disc on day of swap over, they noticed the missing disc and asked for it saying it was a regular part of their trade-in deals and they needed it, I told the salesman it wasn't part of this deal and showed him the signed paperwork, he had to go off and see his manager, I did feel bad for the salesman but I'd lost out before when it wasn't formally part of previous deals so I justified it to myself and anyway that was the signed deal for my wife's new car by both parties