Time to audit aid cash

Car tax goes online and discs axed to save money, then – guess what – number of licence cheats trebles!

GIVEN the EU’s unparalleled record for waste (for two decades the auditors refused to sign off the accounts), the idea of handing Brussels even more aid money to spend on our behalf is surely an act of folly.

But despite Eurocrats spending £167,740 on acrobatics and juggling lessons for young people in Tanzania, among other projects, they were given an extra £177million of British taxpayers’ money last year – taking the total to £1.5billion.

Despite ministerial promises to end aid funding to India, another £92million was spent in a country with its own space programme. Meanwhile China, an economic powerhouse, was gi ven £46million.

It has long been obvious that with so much money swilling around in the budget, aid officials are desperate to find ways to spend it – a sure-fire recipe for profligacy.

So the Mail has a proposal for new International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt: order a full audit of all aid spending to examine just how wisely the money has been used. It won’t happen of course, but if it did this paper believes it would make for disturbing reading. FORCED kicking and screaming by Ofcom into revealing more about the complaints it receives, the BBC has said that over two weeks it had a total of 8,300, completed investigations into 12, but fully upheld just one. However, in the vast majority of cases we do not know what people were objecting to or why the complaints were not upheld. What a joke. THE old paper tax disc worked well for nearly 100 years – and was a visible reminder to drivers when to pay their bill. Yet in its infinite wisdom the Department for Transport scrapped it for a digital version. Now 10 per cent of vehicles are untaxed and revenue is down £107million. How utterly predictable.

THE number of unlicensed cars has trebled since paper tax discs were abolished three years ago, it emerged yesterday.

The Government claimed it would save £10million a year by reducing tax evasion and cutting costs when it replaced paper discs with an online system in October 2014.

But the policy, introduced by then-chancellor George Osborne, was described as a ‘failure’ last night as it revealed a dramatic surge in motorists either dodging tax deliberately or forgetting to pay it.

The Department for Transport (DFT) predicted the exchequer could lose a staggering £107million from evasion of Vehicle excise Duty this year.

This would be the highest level in a decade and around three times the £35million lost in 2013/14 – the final tax year before the reform was introduced.

The number of vehicles which are unlicensed has roughly trebled since 2013/14 to 755,000.

This equates to 1.9 per cent of all vehicles – including those that are not driven – in the UK, and is up by a third from 560,000 in 2015.

The DFT said 1.8 per cent of vehicles on the roads are unlicensed – three times the 0.6 per cent in 2013.

The government publishes these figures every two years.

In its report, the DFT ‘admitted the increase could be due to the effect of major changes to the vehicle licensing system which took place in October

‘Evidently failed’

2014, particularly the automatic refund of tax when a vehicle changes hands’.

Previously any remaining tax on a vehicle was transferred to the new owner when it was sold.

Under the new system, any existing tax ends when a vehicle changes hands and the previous keeper is automatically refunded the remaining tax. The new owner must tax the vehicle immediately. But the government figures indicate that many motorists are failing to do this.

Just over half (51 per cent) of untaxed cars were more than ten years old, with just over a third (34 per cent) changing hands since September 2016.

The DFT also said the abolition of paper tax discs ‘removed a visual in-vehicle reminder of the tax disc expiry date’.

The previous system evidently proved more effective than the r eminders which are now emailed to drivers by the Driver and Vehicle licensing agency.

However, it’s not just drivers forgetting to tax their cars – the number of motorists deliberately dodging tax has also risen sharply. There was a twelve- f old i ncrease i n the number still driving despite declaring their vehicle was off the road and not eligible for tax.

This rose from 1 per cent of unlicensed vehicles in 2015 to 12 per cent – almost 68,000 drivers.

RAC public affairs manager Nicholas lyes said: ‘ These figures are extremely concerning. The principle of abolishing the tax disc to i ntroduce greater efficiencies has, so far, evidently failed.

‘arguably more drivers are now prepared to try their luck and see if they can get away with not paying any vehicle tax at all.’

a Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘ as DVLA’s current campaign stresses, driving a vehicle without taxing it is breaking the law and the DVLA will continue to crack down on drivers who do.’