The Finance Act 1992 is amended by inserting the following after section 136:

"136A.

(1) The Commissioners may authorise in writing one or more than one competent person to carry out, on their behalf, a specified function or functions relating to the proper operation of vehicle registration tax, subject to such conditions as the Commissioners think fit to impose.

(2) The Commissioners may, at any time for reasonable cause (which shall be stated to the competent person) and following such notice as is reasonable in the circumstances, revoke an authorisation made under subsection (1).

(3) Vehicle registration tax payable at the time of registration of vehicles examined by the competent person for the purposes of section 131(1) shall be paid to the Commissioners by the competent person not later than the 15th day of the month following that in which the vehicle was registered.

(4) The amount of vehicle registration tax which, apart from this section, would be payable by the competent person in accordance with section 131, in respect of all vehicles examined by that person in any month which are registered in that month (in this section referred to as "the gross amount"), shall be reduced by an amount calculated in accordance with the following formula -

A - B

where -

A is the total fees payable by the Commissioners to a competent person in respect of the examination of those vehicles, and