Help! Taxing a bike taken out of the UK for over 6 months

[Russki Guzzi]

My UK registered bike has been sitting out the Russian winter in a Moscow garage. Its UK road tax expires today, so I went online at the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency’s website to pay the next year’s tax so I’d be legal when I ride it back to the UK later this year. However the MOT has expired so the DVLA site wouldn’t let me tax the bike.

I then phoned the DVLA to find out how to tax it. They took lot of pleasure in insisting that not only could I not tax it, but it would be illegal for me to ride it back to the UK untaxed. “There are lots of cameras & we crush vehicles” is exactly what the guy said. He then went on to say that if a vehicle is taken out of the UK for more than 6 months it has to be officially exported. What about people who spend years on RTW trips I asked? This means their vehicles must all be on the road illegally. “You’d be surprised how many we catch” was the reply.

So…is any of this true? Mr DVLA said the only thing I can legally do is ship the bike back from Moscow to the UK. That sounds like bollocks to me, but I don’t like the idea of riding across Europe on a bike that might be seized and destroyed.

I’d welcome any advice from anyone who’s had the same problem.