Vehicle excise duty evasion: 2005

Main results for Great Britain:

• Vehicle Excise Duty evasion is estimated to cost £147 million in the year 2005/6, some £18 million more than in 2004/5 but well below the figure of over £206 million in 2002/3.
• The revenue lost from VED evasion is equivalent to 3.6 per cent of the total revenue that should be raised, compared with 3.4 per cent in 2004/5 and 4.8 per cent in 2002/3.
• In the Private and Light Goods tax class which accounts for 87 per cent of vehicle stock, evasion rose from 2.9 per cent of vehicles in use in 2004 to 3.1 per cent in 2005. The equivalent figure for 2002 was 4.4 per cent.
• Regionally, the largest increase in evasion rate between 2004 and 2005 was in Wales.
• The survey also showed that vehicles that are not correctly licensed have on average lower mileage than properly licensed vehicles in all tax classes.
• Evasion rates are highest among motorcycles and other vehicles, as was the case in 2004.
• Evasion rates are higher for older vehicles. Evasion among vehicles in the PLG class that are more than 10 years old is five times the evasion level of vehicles less than 10 years old. Evasion is around 10 times higher for vehicles whose owner details are not known.

Main results for Northern Ireland:

• Evasion in traffic fell by a quarter from 2004/5 to 2005/6 from 7.2% to 5.4%.

Publication details

First published on 27 October 2005. Updated to include Northern Ireland figures on 30 March 2006 by Transport Statistics.

Available by telephone order on +44 (0)20 7944 3077

E-mail: vehicles.stats@dft.gov.uk for queries concerning vehicle licensing statistics.

For information about release of this product see National Statistics Online