News: Abolition of tax disc angers boy with 12,000 of them
Says Osborne has “made a mistake”
FROM NEXT Wednesday the tax disc is no more, but while most people will be rejoicing about no longer having to carefully tear out the flimsy circle of paper and ease it into the holder on the windscreen, one 12-year-old boy is far from happy.
Jude Currie, who lives in Cobham, Surrey, has been collecting tax discs since he was seven years old, and today has 12,000 of them dating from 1926. He was bitten by the collecting bug when he spotted a tax disc in an abandoned Fiat.
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Attracted by the small circles of coloured paper he persuaded his parents, Garnet and Candice Currie, to take him to vehicle scrapyards to find more.
Jude said: “I managed to collect at least 25 from the scrapheap cars and that was enough to get my collection going. I am always excited when I find old tax discs I don’t have.”
He continued: “Some of my favourites are from the 1960s, 70s and 80s, as they have nice colours and are well laid out.”
However, news that the tax disc is being abolished from next week has upset the young collector.
“I can’t believe they are stopping the tax discs,” he said. “It’s an end of an era. It’s like if the Royal Mail stopped doing stamps. I think George Osborne has made a mistake. We’ve had car tax discs since 1921. They are like a receipt and they need to be something which can be on display. I’m really going to miss them.”
Undaunted, he has vowed to carry on collecting: “Just because the tax discs are being stopped doesn’t mean I’m going to stop. There are still so many more discs I want to collect.”
From next Wednesday, October 1, vehicle owners will no longer have to display a tax disc. See our essential guide to the new rules here.
Meanwhile, an investigation by The Sunday Times Driving found that the abolition of the tax disc could enable criminals to clone cars far more easily.
