Government cost saving exercise

[jd.linklater]

The end of the paper tax disc was supposed to save the Government £10m a year in admin. costs.

Net result......a loss of £107m.

Did anyone other than the Government and perhaps DVLA think this was a good idea?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42009111

[cee-dee]

It is a fine example of what "Thought" did. Someone "thought" that moving car tax in to the digital age would save money on all that postage and paper lark and having the re-taxing online along with the "must do everything on my mobile" mindset coupled with the easy detection by ANPR cameras everywhere would "definitely" save money. (Only IF everyone complied?)

I "thought" it was a bad idea and I expect many others "thought" so too and it's just proved that they "thought" right and the bureaucrats that convinced the government to go along with it "thought" wrong.

Most people won't know if a car's taxed or not without seeing the paper disc. OK, I know we can check online if we wanna be nosey but I think the majority can't be bothered and why should they?

The thing is, the other day I saw that a lady who owns a car that is due zero tax got fined for not re-taxing her car! Even though it's zero tax, you still have to go through the correct motions. She didn't and then thought the fine was an admin error so ignored it. It ended up in Court and cost her over £300.

[023mjc]

Do ANY of the governments cost saving exercises, actually save any costs. 

[margaret*e]

I don't know anyone who thought it was anything but a stupid idea.

 It may be that drivers are not trying their luck as it says in the article, but that they haven't got the disc with the expiry date to remind them to renew.

[theelench]

I thought we still got a reminder letter?  I hope so, or has that been moved to an app now?

One set of people who thought it was a good idea are the sellers of "collectable tax discs" on ebay.

[fallen-archie]

Could it possibly also be something to do with the ease of forgery these days? Given that you can buy a British passport in most third world countries, whatever method is used these days there is someone out there looking for a way of cheating the system, if only we could harness their energy and use it for a positive outcome wouldn’t the world be a better place?

[023mjc]

No,we still get a reminder.  My son received his a few days ago.