A Taxing Problem

This post could have been entitled, S is for Service. Since When?

Those of us with long memories, will recall the days when you bought a second-hand car and the seller passed you the log book along with the keys. Those days are long gone. Now it’s the super-efficient method of registering ownership. Much better. Innit?

Well, no actually, it isn’t. In fact it’s one of the biggest cockups I’ve come across.

Let me explain.

I bought a new (second-hand) car last week. It had a full MOT and two weeks tax left on it. Like good little soldiers, I have my half of the slip and the other party sent his bit off to Swansea (I hope).

The tax runs out next Wednesday, but I can’t tax it online, because I don’t yet have my new registration doc. Even if I did, it would still be chancy because we’re going away next week and the disc might not arrive in time, in which case I’d be guilty of failing to display a current tax disc.

So I have to go to Post Office. No problem. Except that to tax it there, I need a form V10, and guess what. Our Post Office doesn’t stock them. I downloaded a copy from the internet, but my printer is shot, so I transferred it to a memory stick and trawled round the local photography and newsagent shops, and not one of them has the facility to print me out this document. Even the Post Office won’t do it.

My alternative is to fork out 30-40 quid on a new printer, go through all the hassle of installing and then leave it to rot like that last one because I never use it. But unless I can get it printed, I can’t tax the fucking car and if I don’t tax the fucking car, it’s a fixed penalty.

Now the big question.

Which overpaid, over-privileged, brain dead prat came up with such an inflexible system, and how much of a bonus did he collect for thinking it up?