I was fined £80 . . . for not paying car tax of £0.00

P.N.writes: Mad, bad bureaucracy is in spanking good health. Earlier this year I received a vehicle tax demand for £0.00 for my super-green little car. I have now been forced to stump up an £80 fine or face court action for failing to pay this tax.

While suffering clinical depression, I had binned the initial demand for no money. I did receive a further letter, offering me a ‘last chance’ to tax my car, but I remained baffled. How do you pay tax of nil? Would the bank take the cheque seriously? When I received the penalty demand I appealed and at the request of the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency supplied detailed evidence of my medical condition.

The agency clearly decided I was not depressed enough and said that if I did not pay the penalty, it would take me to court. THERE was a subtle but important change in the words used by the agency in its letters to you. It began with its ridiculous demands for payment of no tax at all, but when you failed to pay up £0.00, it hit you with the demand for £80 as a ‘late licensing penalty’.

As you now appreciate, all vehicles kept or used on the road must be licensed. There are various fees for this licence, but the fee for your type of car is nil. In short, you were fined for failing to understand that you had to apply to renew the licence, which in your case was free. You were not fined for failing to hand over no money.

I asked staff at the agency’s headquarters in Swansea whether it was true that they had sent a demand for £0.00. If so, I asked, what would have been an acceptable way to pay this sum?

At first they sidestepped the question, giving me nothing more than an explanation of the vehicle licensing system as a whole. So, I had another go, trying to find any shred of common sense in the agency’s letter that offered to allow you to ‘pay the arrears of tax calculated as £0.00.’ I did not get much further forward though.

The agency offered no explanation of the wording of its letters and demands. It is pretty clear that staff did not even look up the dictionary definition of what a tax is, or they would have seen that it is a levy to raise money for the Government.

How do you raise money by asking someone to pay no pounds and no pence? An official told me: ‘We are currently reviewing our reminders and penalty letters.’

This still leaves you £80 out of pocket, which is a disgrace, and the agency should be ashamed of itself.