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Should NOx levy be refunded on export?
Hi
On 20/08/2020 I imported a car from Northern Ireland. I paid €1,494 VRT and €1,500 of NOx levy. For employment reasons on the 21/10/2020 I had a vehicle Export Examination and was granted a VRT refund of €1,464 less Revenue's admin of €100, so a repayable refund of €1364. No NOx repayment. On enquiring with Revenue I have been told that it was not refundable. Should the NOx levy be refunded too? Any help would be appreciated.
Stephen Mc Cready (Letterkenny)Oct 2020 Filed under: VRT
Expert answer
Hi Stephen,
Yes, you’re right — the NOx charge should have been included as part of the overall repayment of VRT, as effectively NOx is an addition to VRT, not technically a separate tax.
We’ve queried this issue with Revenue before and their official reply was: “As with the CO2 component of VRT, a residual amount of the NOx charge will be included in the reclaiming of VRT. The VRT Export Repayment system refunds VRT based on the Open Market Selling Price of the vehicle at the time the vehicle is examined. Where the NOx charge is included in the OMSP, which will be the case for vehicles registered after 01/01/2020, a residual amount of that charge will be repaid to the customer as part of the standard calculation.”
Now, the tricky part of that statement might be ‘residual’ as that might give Revenue the wiggle room to only pay back some, all, or none of the total original NOx charge. But, yes, definitely worth raising with them and asking the question.
Neil Briscoe - Complete Car Advisor @neilmbriscoe