DOT to review Euro-vignettes
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by Lee Kimber • Department of Transport officials are reviewing their attitudes to Eurovignettes after a judge criticised the current system for forcing ex-patriate drivers of British-registered trucks to pay double duty.
DVLA officials have asked the DOT's road. haulage division to reexamine the status of Euro-vignettes after Judge Clegg criticised laws which forced him to order Chris Hooper to pay £1,033 in back duty—although he lives and works abroad (CM 20-26 February).
Hooper had been in the UK for less than seven minutes when he was pulled over at Dartford last November with an untaxed British-registered truck.
Clegg accepted Hooper's plea of mitigation that Britain ought to allow him to drive the unladen truck in the EC under a Eurovignette and that Eurovignettes are a toll on road use. But he said that British law left him no choice but to order Hooper to pay back-duty.
The implication that Euro-vignettes should be accepted as a substitute for British road-tax for vehicles rarely used here casts doubt on Britain's isolated view that vehicle tax is a tax on vehicle use, not road use.
The DOT is waiting for a detailed transcript of Clegg's judgement, but officials say owners of UK-registered vehicles should pay duty because the income is eventually used to fund road maintenance. They refuse to comment on Clegg's apparent acceptance of Hooper's solicitor's defence that as an EU member Britain should accept that Hooper's contribution was paid through the Euro-vignette.
"Our problem is that we haven't seen the technicalities of the decision," a DOT official says. "When we have, we'll be in a position to advise ministers."