Local Man Stopped For No Tax Had “A Good Run, In Fairness”

RATHER than lament his 80 euro on-the-spot fine or grumble about how he now has to back-tax his car after being stopped at a random checkpoint and cited for lack of road tax, Waterford man James Finnertan has instead decided to sit back and raise a glass to all the years he managed to get by without a shred of tax, stating that ‘all good things must come to an end’.

Finnertan was stopped late yesterday evening by traffic Gardaí on the N25 heading for Kilmeaden outside Waterford city, where his 2011 Toyota Avensis was found to have a tax disc that had expired in February of this year.

Despite his best efforts to convince the officer that he was ‘just taking it out for a spin to keep the battery right’ due to the car being ‘off the road all year but some lad was coming to buy it in the morning’, Finnertan was forced to accept the fine and ordered to back-tax the vehicle, with the officer adding that he was ‘lucky it wasn’t being impounded’.

But having only ever taxed cars that he drove for a few months at a time over his 15 year driving history, Finnertan accepted his fine and drove on, happy that he was ‘still in the black’ when it comes to road tax.

“Ah, they had to get me at some stage, “said the 33-year-old Waterford native, chuckling as he filled in his online tax form.

“But look, I’m still well up when it comes to money, seeing as how I’ve driven for 15 years and paid maybe, maybe 3 year’s worth of road tax here and there over that time. So yeah, fuck it, we’ll tax it for now, and let see how we are in the new year. If I last another 15 years without being stopped, I’ll be laughing!”