Taxing Times

Normally in Ireland you can do your Motor Tax online. There are only a number of instances in which you can't. Otherwise you either have to go to the Motor Tax Office yourself, or send in a form (accompanied by your Registration Cert) by Post.

One such instance is if the bike has been out of tax for more than three months. I knew that the person I bought the bike from hadn't taxed it so I rang the Tax Office to find out how long it was out of tax. November, 2006. That's right. Two years!

Luckily, you are only liable for tax on a bike since the date you purchased it. Furthermore, if you can prove the bike was off the road (usually just a signature on a form from the Garda Siochana) you won't be liable until you've sent the form in. I decided to not bother with the form signing lark and sent the RF100 in with the Reg Cert.

Tax for the year was €73, with a €14 penalty for late payment. Not bad all in all. I also bought a tax disc holder from Liam at LME Motorcycles for 15 yoyos.



Most tax disc holders work the same way. They've got allen key bolts with small number 4 nuts (that's what she said) at the rear. Undo the six allen bolts, put the disc underneath the rubber seal and redo the bolts. The holder and bolt detail are shown in the picture below.



Tax discs must be fitted to the left hand side of your bike in Ireland (so if you are stopped both the Garda can inspect the disc safely and not with his behind in traffic!) and also must not cover the registration number in any way. This was a famous trick of bikers over the years but recently has been clamped down on with hefty fines for doing so. So, to keep in line with these two regulations I decided to fit the tax disc holder to the chain gaurd just above the swingarm. It's nicely protected from being kicked/bumped off to easily and it's concealed from the eyes of passing thieves (well, the unobservant ones anyway).

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