any questions
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Jim Duckworth. editor of Road Transport Law and head of Transport Law Services, Woking, Surrey. helps solve your legal problems in this monthly column. Write to Commercial Motor Any Questions, Room H203 Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS or 'phone CM'S legal hotline (0181 652 3689) giving your name and number. Duckworth's answers are an interpretation of the law and should not be seen as definitive.
Taxing problem
We own a Volvo F10 6x2 tractor which is usually coupled to a triaxle trailer. Due to a load of hay on the trailer being set on fire we had to use the tractor the next day with a tandem-axle trailer.
The vehicle was stopped in a Ministry check and we have now received a summons for using the tractor at the wrong tax rate. A trade organisation has told us that the tandem-axle trailer can be used 'occasionally' under the 3+3 licence. Is that correct ?
ABecause your three-axled
tractor unit was taxed at a low rate for use with semitrailers having three or more axles, you should not have used it to tow the two-axled trailer without first paying extra vehicle excise duty.
The rate you were paying for the 3+3 was £1,240 a year but the rate for a 3+2 is £2,730 —more than double.
There is nothing in the law which states that though a tractor is taxed at the 3+3 rate it can occasionally be used with a two-axled trailer, so you have been misinformed on that point.
However, the summons you have received is addressed to you as an individual trading as a limited company and that is not right. You and the company are separate legal persons and the summons should be addressed either to you or the company—not both.
It could be that the summons has been issued this way because the prosecution do not know who was using the vehicle at the time. The documents you forwarded contain no evidence that the enforcement agency involved has obtained any admission from you or the company about the use of the vehicle at the time in question.
If the prosecution cannot prove who was using the vehicle the charge will have to be dismissed.