A Not paying will most
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certainly result in you receiving a summons to appear in court. The same amount could be claimed as back duty and you could be ordered to pay an excise penalty of up to five times the vehicle's annual rate of tax.
Section 9 of the Vehicles (Excise) Act 1971 states that when a person is convicted of using an un-taxed vehicle on a road the court must order him to pay back duty dating from the time he notified acquiring the vehicle or, if later, the expiry date of the previous licence in force for the vehicle.
Until May 1987 Section 9(3)(b) provided that if a person could prove that the vehicle had not been kept or used on a road by him for any month in the arrears period, he would not be liable for duty for that month. But this was repealed by the Finance Act 1987. The only way out of back duty now is to prove that throughout any month in the arrears period you were not the keeper of the vehicle.
By paying the DVLA excise penalty, which is equivalent to a Section 9 back-duty claim, you would also avoid having a conviction on your record which could affect your Operator's Licence.