Road tax changes for cars off the road

From next Tuesday ( October 1) new rules will govern the road tax liability for a car that is not in use.

Up to now (actually until midnight next Monday) if your car is not on the road then you had a way not to pay any road tax for that period. This was very easy to abuse and in particular many owners of pre-2008, who unfairly pay much higher road tax than cars say that they couldn’t afford the tax

Thousands of people purposely drove around for months without bothering to tax the car then claiming it had been off the road and did not pay the back tax. Those days are about to come to an end.

You will now have to declare that the car is off the road in advance. If you do not then you will have to pay any back taxes owed on it.

The government estimates that the evasion of road tax was costing the State €50 million a year.