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Hi Katarzyna,

You can, but there are two things standing in your way — first you will have to tax the van as a private vehicle, and that means you may end up paying more every year than the flat-rate €333 commercial vehicle road tax rate. Secondly, you will need to make sure you tell your insurer that the van is being used for private, social, domestic and pleasure use, as that may have an impact on your quote and coverage. 

Read our Buying a commercial vehicle for private use feature for more

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Hi Tim,

Yes, that looks about right to us and, if you’ve used the Revenue VRT calculator, then the VRT cost should be close enough to what you’ll actually have to finally pay. One word of warning — the calculator doesn’t allow for extra optional equipment, which can jack up the cost of VRT, so beware of that when you bring it down for inspection.

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Hi Padraig,

If it’s a crew-cab and you’re taxing it as a commercial vehicle, then it’s a flat-rate commercial tax of €333 a year. If you want to use it as a private car, then you have to revert to the old engine-capacity tax, and that’s  going to be €710 a year for a 2.0-litre engine.

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Hi Felicitas,

It’s a tricky one. Theoretically, the amount of VRT you’d have to pay on an imported Kona would be zero or close enough to it, as the €5,000 rebate should more or less cover the VRT payment (I say more or less because the Irish spec of the Kona is slightly different to the UK’s so there may be some optional equipment charges). The payment you will have to pay is the VAT. If a car is less than six months old, even if the VAT has already been paid in the UK, you have to pay it here, so that’s going to be 21 per cent, which will be around €4-5,000. Also, beware of the BIK rebate — that is designed strictly for company car users, so I’d check with your accountant to make sure everything is above board. 

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Hi Tom,

There doesn’t, slightly bizarrely, seem to be an online way of doing this I’m afraid. Your best bet is to actually go to your local motor tax office, and bring both your vehicle registration document and your primary medical certificate with you. The actual human in the MT office should be able to sort you out, but it’s odd that there seems no way to do this via the web, which would obviously be much easier for those with restricted mobility.

Incidentally, you’re also allowed to claim back both VRT and VAT on the car you’ve bought (download form DD1 from the Revenue website) and there’s also a fuel grant, depending on your circumstances. Have a look at the Citizens’ Information website. It’s really helpful.

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Hi James,

It depends on exactly what Kombi version it is. You see, under the recently changed rules for N1 commercial vehicle VRT and tax, if the van has fewer than ten seats, and the seats and cargo area are all in the one section, then it technically counts as a passenger car and you’ll be paying VRT at either 28 per cent or 31 per cent of the OMSP, and then passenger car motor tax too in Bands D or E.

If it has three or fewer seats, or if the cargo area is physically separated from the seating area, then it counts as a crew-van and you’ll pay 13.3 per cent of the OMSP, but to tax it as a private vehicle you’ll have to put it on the old engine capacity rating (why this is still in use we’re not sure, but it is) and that’ll be €710 a year assuming it has the 2.0-litre TDI engine. 

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Hi Patrick,

Well, sadly, it’s just not that simple. The one per cent surcharge for Vehicle Registration Tax applies only to diesel-engined vehicles, and it’s not a flat-rate rise from ten per cent to 11 per cent, but a one per cent rise across all the VRT bands. VRT has always been something of an iniquitous tax. The thing is that, potentially, you’re right; a VRT increase could possibly dissuade buyers from shopping in the UK, and send them back to Irish forecourts, but only if it were applied to private imports, rather than new registrations through a dealer. That’s problematic too, though, as many dealers actually shop for second hand stock in the UK, given the tendency of Irish cars to be low in spec and small in number. Would such a new tax apply to those imports? Should it? If not, is that unfair to those private individuals who are merely ’shopping around’ for the best value? And given that, technically, every car brought into the state is an import, where does one draw the line when it comes to manufacturer imports versus private imports? VRT is many things, both right and wrong, but one thing it’s sure not is simple.

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Hi John,

It’s a bizarre situation, but when you tax a commercial vehicle as a private car, you revert to the old, pre-2008 by-engine-capacity taxation system. No-one can give us a good reason as to why this is, but it’s the system that’s in place. It’ll cost you €514 a year to tax a 1.6-litre engine. 

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Hi there,

This is possibly a bit above our pay grade as it all sounds a bit dodgy. Potentially, yes, you’re right that your wife is a separate legal entity and that they might well accept that, but it’s definitely going to raise some red flags, especially if you share a surname as well as a home address. I would take advice from a tax accountant, and possibly a solicitor, before trying this. 

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Hi Janie,

On the parking sensor issue, it just seems to be a bit of a quirk with the Audi Q7 that to get the front sensors on when moving forwards, you have to press the parking sensor switch, although they do, as you point out, come on automatically when you select reverse. We’re not sure why this is, but it might be worth a visit to your dealer to see if there’s some finicky bit of software code that can be re-set to activate them automatically at low speeds.

As for the stop-start system, if could be a few things. Obviously, there may be a fault, in which case get the car booked into your dealer for a check-up. Or it could be that you’re doing a lot of low-mileage, short runs, which aren’t allowing the engine and other systems to get fully up to temperature. Stop-start isn’t a simple on/off system — it’s controlled by the engine management and that won’t let stop-start activate if it thinks that the engine hasn’t warmed up enough (stopping and starting a cold engine can be damaging) or if it has detected that you have a lot of high-energy drain systems (air conditioning, demisters etc) running. Try and analyse your driving the next time you go out and see if any of this fits. If not, head for your dealer.