Expansion of online car tax to cater for new car buyers

Following the success of the online renewal system for motor tax, the service has been expanded to allow the owners of new or imported cars to pay their tax online as well. Since March 1st 2004 it has been possible to renew motor tax over the internet.

According to the Department of the Environment, which looks after the area of motor tax, some 30 per cent of vehicle owners use the service while in Dublin this figure is almost 50 per cent.

Similar to renewals, all that will be needed to avail of the new service is a credit or laser card, internet access motortax.ie or motarchain.ie and a unique pin number.

The pin number in the case of first licensing transactions will be the last six digits of the vehicle's chassis number (VIN) which will be on the documentation the vehicle owner will receive from motor dealers, or the Revenue Commissioners in the case of used imported vehicles.

Following completion of the online transaction, the new tax disc and Vehicle Registration Certificate will be posted by the Vehicle Registration Unit to the applicant.

Despite the success of the online programmes, there have been complaints that motorists can enter invalid insurance details when renewing their tax online, because the national vehicle file is not linked to a database of vehicle insurers, as required by European law.

Speaking to The Irish Times some months ago, Dorothea Dowling, former chair of the Motor Insurance Advisory Board, warned that people could choose to put "any old rubbish as the name of your insurance company and policy number because the Department of the Environment doesn't have a database to check if this data is correct." Providing such information to visiting EU citizens who are victims of motor accidents was a central requirement for each member state under the terms of the Fourth Motor Insurance Directive, which came into force in 2003.

With manual tax renewals, documents proving NCT certification and valid insurance had to be provided before the vehicle could be taxed.

A Department of the Environment spokesman said the online vehicle tax registration system is not linked to an insurance database because none exists. He added that spot-checks and Garda checkpoints were used to enforce the requirement to have valid insurance and an NCT certificate.