The Lemon Fool

As in how fast after you tax your vehicle online does it show on https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax

Reason for asking is that I went to tax my car this morning and got to the last screen after entering debit card details and it said it would transfer me to my bank to approve the card, then a button about confirming my mobile number appeared, then it told me it had timed out due to inactivity. So I'm not sure if I'm taxed or not.

The enquiry screen says Taxed Tax Due: 1st May 2018, but if I'd just done the tax, would that have changed yet?

I don't want to end up without tax, but I most certainly don't want to do it twice!

Slarti

Slarti wrote:As in how fast after you tax your vehicle online does it show on https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax

Reason for asking is that I went to tax my car this morning and got to the last screen after entering debit card details and it said it would transfer me to my bank to approve the card, then a button about confirming my mobile number appeared, then it told me it had timed out due to inactivity. So I'm not sure if I'm taxed or not.

The enquiry screen says Taxed Tax Due: 1st May 2018, but if I'd just done the tax, would that have changed yet?

I don't want to end up without tax, but I most certainly don't want to do it twice!

Slarti

Check your debit card account.

If the card has been accepted, the account amount and the available amount should differ by the amount of tax.

Slarti wrote:So I'm not sure if I'm taxed or not.

I'd suspect it failed. Isn't there a final screen which gives you something to print for your own records, or for that matter an email confirmation?

This is what I received last time I paid online

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED EMAIL - PLEASE DO NOT REPLY AS EMAILS
RECEIVED AT THIS ADDRESS CANNOT BE RESPONDED TO.

Confirmation of vehicle tax.

Thank you for using DVLA Vehicle Licensing Online.
Your application for vehicle tax has been successful.

<details of vehicle etc>

supremetwo wrote:Check your debit card account.

If the card has been accepted, the account amount and the available amount should differ by the amount of tax.

Unfortunately, the one down side of banking with First Direct is that they don't show the 2 amounts and payments by Dr card often don't show up for 2 or 3 working days.

Slarti

Alaric wrote:I'd suspect it failed. Isn't there a final screen which gives you something to print for your own records, or for that matter an email confirmation?

This is what I received last time I paid online

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED EMAIL - PLEASE DO NOT REPLY AS EMAILS
RECEIVED AT THIS ADDRESS CANNOT BE RESPONDED TO.

Confirmation of vehicle tax.

Thank you for using DVLA Vehicle Licensing Online.
Your application for vehicle tax has been successful.

<details of vehicle etc>

That is what I would have hoped for, but it just stopped at the timeout screen, with no available options. A very bad bit of design, there.

I'll leave it until tomorrow, then check with my bank (I hate having to phone) and if there is no sign of the Dr Card payment being taken, try again.

Slarti

Slarti wrote:Unfortunately, the one down side of banking with First Direct is that they don't show the 2 amounts

Yes they do. If you select "make payment" it shows "Available balance", which is (current balance + authorised overdraft - pending debit card transactions).

So no downsides to the lovely First Direct

Scott.

swill453 wrote:

Slarti wrote:Unfortunately, the one down side of banking with First Direct is that they don't show the 2 amounts

Yes they do. If you select "make payment" it shows "Available balance", which is (current balance + authorised overdraft - pending debit card transactions).

So no downsides to the lovely First Direct

Scott.

I'd never noticed that, or forgotten it existed.

There is the other downside of them wanting you to do your banking in a reduced size popup window, but I get round that by right clicking on the Online Banking button and selecting Open in a New Tab.

Slarti

I would guess (note this is all it is!) that if the tax status on the DVLA site doesn't update in (near) real time it would be done as an overnight batch run. So if it still says untaxed tomorrow, you almost certainly didn't pay.

But here's no harm in waiting a couple more days so long as you get it done by the end of the month. The email acknowledgment comes through pretty much immediately so if you haven't had that, and it's not in spam/junk, again you haven't paid...

Well I tried again this morning with exactly the same result. Looks like their site is broken.

Have had to do it over the phone, which is a PITA given having to enter 2 16 digit numbers and not getting any confirmation email.

Still not clear from https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax that it is taxed, but thanks to Scott I have been able to check that the payment is pending.

I noticed today that the https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax says it is a beta site and asked for feedback so I emailed them a screen capture of the failure message. Perhaps they'll get it fixed soon.

Slarti

Whenever a website plays up, it's worth trying with another browser, if you didn't already try that. I've had sites that don't function properly in Firefox that work ok in Chrome or IE etc.

Redmires wrote:Whenever a website plays up, it's worth trying with another browser, if you didn't already try that. I've had sites that don't function properly in Firefox that work ok in Chrome or IE etc.

Thing is, it worked OK for me last year on both mine and my wife's cars, but I'm pretty sure it didn't say Beta on it then.

Slarti

I've just renewed my tax this evening, at 18.45. I then received a confirmatory email timed 18.47 which I then printed off.

Nothing showing on the bank account other than £422 debts to be shown later. (No, it's not the car tax!) But DVLA still (at 20:50) reckons it needs taxing.

But I noticed I still had last years confirmatory email in my wallet and our car is used daily so either we weren't clocked by a marauding car, or we were but it checked out ok.

ten0rman

Just checked an my car is now showing as

✓ Taxed

Tax due:
01 May 2019


So that seems OK.

Hopefully when Mrs S' car comes up for tax in June they will have sorted their systems.

Slarti

Slarti wrote:Thing is, it worked OK for me last year on both mine and my wife's cars, but I'm pretty sure it didn't say Beta on it then.

Relax, you're in safe hands. TSB, who have been awarded the management contract, insist that they're making good progress with sorting out the payment system. With luck, they'll also track down the person who erroneously received all your bank details the first time you tried.

BJ

Further update.

This morning, my bank, Nationwide, did not show the outgoing payment. This evening, 20:45 it does. And it shows DVLA or Car Tax or something similar.

DVLA still shows the tax running out on May 1 2018.

ten0rman

Final update.

Just checked the DVLA website (09:11) and the update now shows. So that's actually about 36 hours from start to finish.

ten0rman

That's totally different to the online MOT system. It updates the second your garage registers a pass or fail. When my car's in I usually know the result before the garage calls me.

Scott.

In respect of MOT, DVLA correctly shows mine as expiring backend of May. As it happens, I have a very good independent garage who does both my MOT's and my servicing. On servicing, he always warns, or if necessary does it immediately, about any necessary work so I don't expect any problems with the MOT, even though it is a 5 year old car. In any case, he always does any MOT work immediately so even if it does fail, I expect it to be repaired there and then.

There was an advisory last year in that one of the valve stems was perishing. I immediately got it changed and carried the receipt with me just in case.

I always carry the MOT printout with me just in case.

ten0rman

I've just tried to tax my bike and had exactly the same issue as the original post. Entered the card details and the next screen was - a timeout due to inactivity. This was using Firefox browser. I tried immediately with IE browser and it went through fine. Looks like a DVLC / Firefox update has broken the process somewhat.

Not only Firefox - I had exactly the same problem using Chrome...