A JUDGE will decide today if a local authority is entitled to charge vehicle registration tax for a car which was off the road being restored.
Mr Angus Buttanshaw, counsel for a schoolteacher and classic car enthusiast, Mr Barry Burke, and Mr Paul Gardiner, counsel for Dublin Corporation, yesterday presented their legal submissions to Judge James Carroll.
Mr Burke, of Landscape Park, Churchtown, Dublin, bought a 1968 Triumph Vitesse Mk II Convertible in the UK and imported it into Ireland in November 1992. He registered it in his name on March 5th, 1993, dismantled, it and restored it over the next nine months.
On November 26th, 1993, he applied to Dublin Corporation to tax the car for a three month period and had to pay £213 arrears of tax. His dilemma was that he could not get the tax without insurance. He could not get insurance without a roadworthiness certificate. He could not get a roadworthiness certificate while the car was dismantled.
He told the corporation that he should not be expected to pay tax while the car was dismantled, obviously unroadworthy and not being kept or used in a public place. He had a book of electronically dated pictures to back up his claims.
He sued in the District Court for the return of his money and failed. The legal costs of both parties have run into thousands of pounds.
Mr Buttanshaw claimed that the legislation under which the corporation purported to collect the tax created a charge only in respect of vehicles that were used "in any public place". He said it was conceded by the corporation that the car was not used in any public place in the accepted sense prior to November 1993 and therefore its claim to road tax was unsustainable.
If the corporation's assertion that tax was lawfully due was upheld, a number of inequitable consequences would follow. Mr Burke could be prosecuted under Section 13 of the Roads Act 1920 for not taxing the car, notwithstanding, the fact it had never left his own private property.
He could be required to pay arrears of tax in respect of a period during which he could not possibly tax and use his vehicle - no roadworthy vehicle, therefore no roadworthiness certificate, no roadworthiness certificate therefore no insurance, no insurance, therefore no possibility of getting it taxed.
An anomaly would arise in that there was no doubt that if the vehicle had been purchased in Ireland no tax would have been be payable on it while it was being restored. The liability to tax would arise only where the vehicle had been imported.
Mr Gardiner, for the corporation, claimed that the clear provisions of the Finance Act 1992 obliged Mr Burke, having entered the vehicle in the register, to take out a road tax licence.