Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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196. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his views on correspondence (details supplied) regarding road tax; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42444/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Non-Use of Motor Vehicles Act 2013 came into effect on 1 July 2013. The primary purpose of the Act is to replace the system whereby a vehicle was declared off the road retrospectively with a system under which the vehicle must be declared off the road in advance. The system of making retrospective declarations had become a means of evasion of motor tax estimated to have cost the taxpayer some €5 0 m annually. The Act provides that a vehicle can be declared off the road for a minimum period of three months and a maximum period of twelve months. Where the owner of a vehicle wishes to make a declaration of non-use, he or she must do so during the final month of an existing tax disc or a previously made declaration of non-use. The declaration can be made on-line at or through the local motor tax office. The National Vehicle and Driver File, under the auspices of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, issues renewal notices at the beginning of the final month to remind motorists that a vehicle must be either taxed or declared off the road for a further period.

Where a declaration of non-use is not made in the final month of a tax disc or previously made declaration of non-use, a vehicle must be taxed for the minimum period provided for in motor tax legislation, which is three months in the case a car and twelve months in the case of a motorcycle. A new declaration can then be made at any stage during the final month of the new motor tax disc if the vehicle is thereafter not going to be in use in a public place.

Exemptions are not provided for in individual cases. This is to protect the new arrangements; allowing an owner to declare a vehicle off the road after the expiry of a current declaration of non-use could potentially be a move back to the system of retrospective declarations, thereby undermining the overall objective of the legislative change.