Being a New Zealander who lived for many years in the UK it is interesting the number of regulatory systems that are similar in both countries - we obviously copy a lot of things you do - but, dare I say it - we do a lot of them just a little bit better - this is one of them.
In NZ you have to renew your " Tax Disk" registration much the same as in the UK - except there is no reward for paying it late - running expired you not only risk a heavy fine, no insurance etc - but you also have to pay the full backdated amount when you do renew it - no excuses accepted - and if your vehicle is to be off the road you have to apply to the DVLA equivalent for dispensation - no backdating allowed. Running my UK bad habits I recently renewed 3 mths late but still had to pay for the 3 mths backdated portion.
Easy fix?

Wayne, Auckland, NZ

V.E.D. is a swingeing tax on mobility and now that it is merged with general taxation receipts, completely unjustifiable.
Scrap it as a revenue gatherer - it's dishonest.

Roger, Manilva, Spain

Road tax, (or Road Fund Tax) was abolished in 1936.

Mike, Lancaster, Uk

It cost me £300 a year for road tax only for one car. The system should change, not everyone pays the same though all of us use the same roads, my car is a new one, low emission, and i have to pay so much whereas other cars, old cars, with high emission pay less, The system encorages people to use the loophall since it is unfair.

michal, edgware,

Those who don't buy road tax in the short time before getting a fine are uninsrued anyway. God help anyone who is unfortunate enough to being involved in a car accident with an uninsured driver.

Vik Joshi, Peterborough, UK

It can cost up to £300 to license one car for one year, and in return we get use of a third world road network policed largely by speed cameras rather than real people. The UK used to be the safest place in the world to drive, but because of the modern obsession with speed rather than the myriad other motoring issues we're falling fast out of the top ten.

Is anyone surprised that loopholes are being exploited?

Jamie C, Ongar, Essex

I am one of the 66 Enforcement Field Officers. This article fails to mention that I also Inspect Vehicles (Imports / Rebuilds / Cherished Transfers / Stolen / Cloned / Body Changes / etc) I also have a dedicated area where I have to trace / recover tax discs that were purchased with fraudulent cheques (Why are cheques accepted nowadays without gaurantee cards?) I have to attend court as an expert witness for the Police, Inspect Trade premises for Trade Plates, enforce mispresented number plates, deal with foreign vehicles that have 'overstayed', visit offenders to collect arrears of duty, attend Police Road Checks and on my travels report any sightings of untaxed vehicles. I recover more than £35,000's worth of stolen cars each year without what I generate through my other duties. How many people go out and tax their car after seeing a DVLA Roadcheck? That visual deterrent cannot be measured really.
EFO's want to treat foreign vehicles like any other vehicle - Our hands are tied.

Steve A's little trooper, London, UK

In the report it describes how car tax evaders using the existing loophole can get a free months car tax. But this cant be true to a certain extent because the tax disc is always back dated from the last tax disc issued for that vehicle. These people are not really gaining anything bar taking the risk of getting caught with an expired tax disc. Thats their problem isnt it?.

Daniel Matchett, Chorley, UK

The simple solution is to scrap car tax altogether and add it to the price of petrol.

The Govt. would reclaim its "lost " £214 million, half the staff and thier pensions could go at DVLA, and those who use the roads the most would pay the most.

Loads of police and court time would be saved too.

It would only need to be about 6 pence a litre to cover the removal of the tax .

I have yet to hear a credible argument against this idea.

Sedgwick Morrison, London,

I purchased my new tax disc on 22 December for renewal on 1 January. The new disc could not be dislayed on my car before its start date as this would be illegal. I went out in my car on 2 January completely forgetting to put my new tax disc on the windscreen. I parked my car in its usual place and went shopping. I returned within half an hour to find a 'Police Warning Notice' (CLE 2/6 WNR Part 2 2/00) affixed. The notice said that the vehicle had been seen on a public road without a valid tax disc. It said a report has been sent to DVLA for action under the provisions of thr Vehicle Excise & Registration Act 1994. It went on to say the maximum fine for using a vehicle on the public road without a valid tax disc is £1000 or 5 timesthe annual rate of duty payable for the vehicle, whichever is the greater. In addition to the fine, it also said. convicted offenders will have to pay backduty penalties.
So much for '14 days grace' I await the outcome of this 'Warning Notice' with interest!

Andrew Greenwood, Oldham, England

France did away with the "vignette" some years ago.

Presumably they realised that the taxes and duty on road fuels could be used for that purpose.

Saved a lot of money on collection and everyone pays - including foreign visitors.

R Bingham, Lauzun, France

Forgot to add that we display insurance and test certificate information on the windscreen.

Simple - sorted.

R Bingham, Lauzun, France

Darn! Someone should have told me about this lophole!

Annie, Cambridge, UK

I am one of those who skipped a month of RFL due to not receiving renewal documents.

When I went online with the DVLA to renew, the website did not give me the option of backdating the disc to the previous expiry date which is what I wanted to do.

Ho Hum.

J Capper, Chatteris,

But if the tax was extracted from fuel duty who would be left to employ anyone in Swansea? And then where would the ironically named "Labour" be? What with (possibly) no voters in the North East, no voters in Wales and, at an unfortunate price, no voters in Scotland - what troughs could the cynically sponging, autocratic, fat "social"-ists get their snouts into then? Especially now even the Russians seem to have had enough of their nepotistic ways.

David, Abergavenny, Wales

Looking at the Potholes in our local roads, much of the Road Tax swindle never reaches the Tarmac. I would evade, if my energies weren't already taken up with big mortgage repayments, and excessive taxes. Oh, and I see they''re putting in new coloured Tarmac and priority bollards - blocking the flow of traffic and encouraging cat and mouse speeding to get clear of them. Meanwhile I nearly hit a pothole, avoiding swerving into the path of an HGV. I live in Forest Row, East Sussex. Any one else annoyed with this?

simon raymont, forest row, east sussex

They don't have the policew on their side at all. My wife reported a long, long out-of-date tax disc on our street to a policeman, Oh he said, we don't deal with that any more. It's the traffic warden's job. Aye, sure it is!

The Street Preacher, Stoke-On-Trent, Staffs

Chris, it's not called road tax. Journalists and the public like to call it road tax, because it makes them think they own the roads. Roads are actually paid for our of council and income tax.

Vehicle Excise Duty and fuel duty just go into general spend - where they can be used in the NHS (patching up road victims or supporting people with pollution related lung diseases); police (catching speeding motorists and bad drivers) and many other delightful outcomes of our motor-addicted society.

Richard, London,

Vehicle License Duty should be scrapped and the extra cost put on fuel (yes I know its high already).

That way the lorries & vans that do the most miles and create more wear and tear on the roads pay more, the low mileage Sunday driver pays less.

Then the jobsworths will be unnecessary and the enforcement officers can get on with a proper job.

Money still coming in, no one evades, less money needed for staff, more police on beat, no one needs to remember to renew.

Sounds simple enough to me

David, St Albans, UK

No need to even go to the Post Office I did the whole thing online last year. Took about 1 munute checked my insurance as well and i received a clearly printed disc within 3 days by post. Should be compulsory.

James, Liverpool, England

Exactly why the DVLA should be scrapped and it's make-work pen pushers should be out of a job.

You can put "car tax" onto the price of petrol, then EVERYBODY pays their way.

Michael, Dover, UK

The simple solution is to abolish road tax! And have MOT and insurance disc for display on the vehicle. Of course the lost revenue would have to come from somewhere, an increase in fuel tax perhaps. This would be fairer, the more you drive the more you pay. There would also be a considerable saving as road tax is expensive to collect

David G. Kelly, Barnt Green,,

@ Chris - it's not called "road tax" it's vehicle excise duty. As with every other tax it's not ringfenced for a specific purpose and goes into central coffers.

Dave, Manchester,

I have both a car and a motorcycle. I cannot drive both at the same time so why should I pay tax on them both. The levels of direct and indirect taxation in this country are punative and need to be made fair.

Andrew Wills, Fareham, Hants

So evasion of vehicle duty (tax) costs UK taxpayers £214M. Oh well to make up for the loss, why not increase my income tax, value added tax, fuel duty (tax), stamp duty (tax), corporation tax, or wait till i'm dead and take it from any inheritance tax my relatives may pay or better still plug the loop hole and get the police and traffic wardens to do their jobs and catch the evaders. I pay enough already.

Alan, Barry, UK

The police 'may' give 14 days grace unofficially, but traffic wardens don't. Failure to display is an offense that carries a fixed penalty, so even if you are legally parked, a traffic warden could (and most probably would) still issue you with a ticket.

Kevin, Edinburgh, UK

Well, I'm disappointed... Edward Leigh stopped short of saying that unlicensed cars supported international terrorism :(

The simple solution is put more police on the road, and have them ACTIVELY police the roads, rather than sit in a layby, waiting for the ANPR to go 'bong'.

michael, Newcastle,

there are two cars in my strret with no tax, i'm still waiting for mr plod to take them away. one had an expiry date of 06/07.

Roger Jones, kettering,

if road tax was collected in the price of fuel there would be no evasion or admin costs.........

Simon , London,

I don't understand - the 1st paragraph implies that DVLA needs more enforcement officers, yet goes on to say that those that we do have barely earn enough to cover their wage. Surely then, we have more than enough????

Boo, London,

The DVLA has only 66 enforcement officers, but it has the police on thier side, with more and more police dept investing in new technology which scans number plates and relays information about roadtax, insurance, and mot back to the patrol cars who duly stop you an seize your vechiles if untaxed or uninsured according to the MID database ,the DVLA dosent need any enforcement officers. Here in Manchester over 20,000 cars have been siezed , so getting away with it seems very unllikely and as for the unoffical 14 days grace , think that applies to rural commuintys or Times journalists!!

Imaan, Manchester,

I have this problem every year. Not because I am trying to evade tax but because the local post office is run by some of the most beaurocratic jobsworths I have ever known. None the less, when I finally meet their demands for obscure paperwork and drag the tax disc from their clutches it is indeed always backdated. Who would have thought that the government would make paying tax so hard to do? It's not like anyone else will be trying to do it for me.

dougal, Edinburgh , UK

how can it be called road tax when the revenue raised is not spent on roads but used to prop up this ailing government..

chris, liverpool,

the date your road tax expires should be the renewal date, simple solution

alan jones, pietermaritzburg, south africa