| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| JB |
Should fuel tax be cut? ...... or is the pain the only way to make people change their behaviour? |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
I think we should be learning to cut our reliance on oil, but I do think it unfair that the rest of Europe gets cheaper fuel. Yet again it amazes me how when the price goes up, most people forget about the 'Green' issue. Did any of you see Hazel Bleers on Question Time advocating that we, and other countries, should get on and start pumping more oil out of the ground to keep the price down. She is from the same government that wants to cut carbon footprints. 
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| orangepippin |
The problem is that the government is not investing enough in transpor alternatives, so for most people there is no opportunity to change behaviour even if they wanted to (and granted, many people may not want to).
I would prefer to see petrol taxes set at an absolute amount per year, giving certainty to the government and to motorists. Under the current regime we effectively have a double whammy against motorists because as the petrol price goes up, so does the tax. The only reason government ministers want to get more oil pumped is because it will reduce the price without forcing their hand on tax reductions. OPEC may wonder why they should pump more oil simply to allow the UK to maintain its high petrol taxes. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
We should stop blaming the Government for not providing alternatives. What is to stop communities car sharing or rural villages operating their own private mini-busses etc? | ||||||
| cab |
So, fuel duty is partly to reduce fuel useage.
The cost rises through duty alone were insufficient. Now that the price is starting to bite, the government might reduce duty because, errm, the goal wasn't really to reduce useage? This is make or break time for green policy; either they mean it and prices will remain the same and duty will continue to increase, or they don't, and they'll stall on this. We'll know soon enough which it is to be. |
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| Treacodactyl |
The government has already postponed duty rises and I think most people would agree it's not about being green but simply tax.
Personally I don't really think they should cut the tax unless it's part of a joined-up policy although I think it should also apply to aircraft and other lightly taxed users. |
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| JB |
No they don't. http://www.theaa.com/onlinenews/allaboutcars/fuel/2008/may2008.pdf has figures from the start of May which shows that Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Portugal and Sweden all have more expensive fuel. The figures for diesel are not so good where there are three european countries more expensive than the UK (Belgium, Netherlands and Norway). The margin between diesel and petrol has been growing because the demand for diesel in preference to petrol in the UK appears to not have been anticipated Cheap european fuel seems to be one of those unquestioned myths that persists regardless of the facts. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
I can see both sides, but what I do like is how powerful the hauliers are. Next week they have promised major action that could easily bring down Brown's Government if they wanted too. Politics has become exciting again. | ||||||
| cab |
I don't particularly care what most people think; the tester is whether the government caves to pressureon this issue. If they do they lose what little credibility they have on green issues. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
That's O.K. then. If the playing field is even, we shall just have to get used to paying for our finite fuel, and looking for ways to reduce its use. |
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| JB |
None of the major hauliers have offered any support to this campaign, in fact only last week Stobbart group reported record profits and forecasts. The people who are complaining are the minor haulage companies who are suffering not because fuel prices are high but because there are more hauliers than customers, reducing fuel prices will do nothing to help them as they will still need to cut their prices to compete and some will inevitably suffer as long as there is more capacity than demand. Much as I might agree that Labours sell by date has long gone there is something fundamentally frightening about the prospect that the government can face a greater threat from a couple of hundred drivers behaving like spolit brats than they can from the poll booth.
May you live in interesting times. |
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| vegplot |
I agree with this. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
Everybody has a right to withdraw their labour in this country. We all rely on hauliers to fill the shops and supermarkets with everything from baby milk to toilet paper. If they did nothing more than park up for a fortnight, this country would be broken by panic buying and smash and grabbing. Brown knows this, and knew it last time. That is why the Government caved in the last time just before the supermarkets started to be affected. I'm not saying that you are not right in what you say. I can't understand myself why they don't just put up their prices and pass on the fuel costs to their customers. But all I'm saying is it is exciting, and it great that the public again are being reminded how we are so dependant on oil for maintaining our lifestyles. | ||||||
| orangepippin |
Fine, but in that case the government should stop implementing "green" taxes, or at the very least pass the revenue on to local communities so that they can implement the alternatives that the government is apparently unwilling to. |
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| cab |
Alternatives such as what? Really, what alternatives that maintain the same lifestyle while using less carbon do you propose? I agree there are other ways to generate electricity (and we're pitiful at investing in that), but with regard to burning oil derivatives for transport, what alternatives? |
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| orangepippin |
We are constantly told that public transport is more environmentally friendly than private motoring. If there is any merit at all in so-called green taxes, then they must be used to encourage lower impact changes in behaviour - such as providing genuine public transport alternatives. That does not seem to be happening. | ||||||
| Gray |
I was watching newsnight last night and listening to Kirsty Wark interviewing the environment minister (his name escapes me!!). This is where I get confused - the minister explained that as petrol prices rise the amount the government coffers receive actually falls.
I thought petrol duty was a percentage levey on each litre therefore, it must surely rise as the price rises? 
Can anyone explain this one ? |
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| JB |
Oh yes everyone has a right to withdraw their labour but not a right to force others to withdraw their labour which is what these campaigners have suggested they would do by threatening to blockade refineries the way they tried previously. Withdrawing their labour would have no effect because there are so many goods vehicles in the country. A quick search shows that there are some three and a half million goods vehicles in the UK and their protest gained the support of some 200 - 300 which is less than 0.01%! The blockades and other general thuggery are a tactic they have had to resort to in the past because their political campaigning failed so they tried to use threats and punch above their weight to compensate for the fact that they have neither a valid argument nor public support. (It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine whether I agree with them) |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
I too saw this, and did not understand. |
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| Treacodactyl |
I think duty is constant on a litre of fuel, VAT is a % which is added to the cost of fuel and duty (yep, tax on a tax...) So, the more you sell the more tax you make but if people use less then the amount of tax will fall. However, I expect the government minister has conveniently forgotten the tax the oil companies pay such as corporation tax. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
Even with high fuel prices, my wife traveled last week from Glasgow to Perth on the train (18.10). From Stirling to Perth there were only two passengers. 
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| JB |
But how many are there on average? |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
Probably just one, as my wife seldom does that trip. Often trains pass my house on the Perth to Dundee line with only a couple of faces looking out. | ||||||
| JB |
Transport Scotland shows that Stirling and Perth combined account for 6392 daily journeys (just a tad more than one  )
Edit - just had a closer read of that. Glasgow to Perth accounts for the majority of the journeys to Perth excluding those to and from the North East. Assuming some 400 journeys on just that route and an hourly service that means that those trains would be averaging 40 miles / gallon (fuel consumption figures from virgin trains). Of course this pretends that no one either boarded or alighted between Glasgow and Perth. Add that in and the train is probably managing something around 80 - 100 mpg / passenger. There's a fair amount of assumption there but rail travel fuel consumption is neither a major cost nor a major environmental impact. |
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| JB |
They don't put up their prices because competition means that they are unable to unless they form a cartel with all their competitors. Someone will undercut them so the first to raise prices will be the first to lose business. On the other hand the major hauliers are able to bid for major contracts which have been negotiated so that they are linked to fuel prices. Those contracts then insulate the major hauliers from both the competition in the market as they are long term and the variability in fuel prices as they do pass the price rise on. The smaller companies are left at the sharp end of competition and have to absorb those fuel price rises themselves in order to win any business. |
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| cab |
Why do you assume that the green tax is only relevant if it changes behaviour by two different mechamisms rather than just one? |
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| orangepippin |
One thing that clearly emerges from the current mess is that taxation totally dominates and distorts the transport and environmental agendas. | ||||||
| cab |
Not really, what emerges clearly is that people are entirely obsessive over transport cost, and that we've made a massive mistake in allowing our economy to be so entirely shaped by the promise of cheap fuel. Whats sad is that this has been obviously coming for decades. |
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| Nick |
Breaking news, just on the radio. Downing Street have announced plans to relax licencing laws for extraction of North Sea oil, meaning production will go up. And price can fall.
More to follow when someone on the wire gets their act together. |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
She said the train was busy when it left Glasgow but by the time it left Stilrling all but two has got off. It couln't have been very 'green' to run a train the thirty miles up to Perth with only two people. 
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| Cho-ku-ri |
And that is going to cut our Carbon Footprint how?
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| orangepippin |
You are right - it won't. But it will get the price down without the government having to back-down on the petrol tax level. | ||||||
| orangepippin |
When you say "we have made a massive mistake" what I think/hope you mean is "our government has made a massive mistake". If we could take tax out of the environmental debate, it would be a lot easier to see what the real issues are, and what the best solutions are. As it currently stands the best solutions are assumed to be those that raise taxes. Hence we have the proposal to increase taxes on old cars bought after 2001 - which even Greenpeace has criticised because it has little if any environmental benefit yet is being dressed up as a "green" tax. |
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| Behemoth |
In response to CKR's post:
Depends how many people in Perth were wanting to come back the other way. Public transport, based on set timtables, will always have peaks and troughs for demand. The key is to get the most use out of the infrastructure but to do it in an efficient manner overall, not just for one particular run per day between two destinations. Sometimes a car has one person in it, sometimes four, you might want to reduce the number of times it's used by a single person but that it will be used by a single person sometimes is inevitable. |
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| Nick |
It's not. We're going to burn all the oil we can find. Doesn't matter how much it costs, we're going to do it. |
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| Jonnyboy |
Hang on, are there different prices for oil depending on location or one commodity price set in USD? If it's the latter then all that will do is push up profits. |
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| cab |
Its a sad copout to blame the government of a parliamentary democracy for the mistaken view held in our society that it is reasonable that our lifestyles will always be possible because fuel will always be cheap; it saddens me that so many people would rather blame 'the government' than accept that its a serious societal problem that most of us are part of.
Poodoo. That the solutions currently employed are based around raising tax does not mean that they're the best ones, or thought of as the best ones, they're merely the ones that our society (which isn't one that stomachs real spending on environmental issues when that would mean less spending elsewhere); you can blame the government for the people being unwilling to shoulder the responsibilty for our environment if you like but, again, copout. |
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| JB |
Paradoxically it is green to run trains when they are empty. It's only by having a reliable service that people will use it. Near here there is a rail line and the station is right at the end of the line. Nonetheless they run trains which are nearly empty in the off peak hours. Of course if they only ran trains at peak times then people wouldn't use it because they wouldn't be able to rely on the service getting them back when they want. So the presence of empty trains off peak is part of what makes the service profitable on peak and viable overall. |
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| JB |
It will have some effect but yes you are right the price of a global commodity will be largely unaffected by this. What it might do is ease the pressure on diesel refining locally which is part of the reason for diesel prices being noticably higher than petrol prices. |
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| orangepippin |
JB: I can't see how running empty trains makes any sense at all! Public transport is not right for every situation. It is best used in urban environments where a critical mass of routes and frequencies can be assembled. In that scenario it is probably more environmentally friendly and more cost-effective than private transport. However in rural areas the private car is likely to be the better solution. It's interesting that this was recognised in the original Yorkshire and Humber Regional Transport Strategy (this being a region that has both extremely rural areas and very large conurbations). When the RTS was submitted to central government it came back with a myriad of line by line corrections, the implication being that Yorkshire and Humber had been rather silly to conclude that public transport was not necessarily the answer in rural areas. |
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| vegplot |
I fear that may well be the case. Unless there are cheaper readily useable alternatives we will be dependent on and demand oil regardless of cost. The profile of use may change that slightly less cars on the road but those numbers will bounce back to more or less there normal levels. Only when oil starts to run out will we see any major changes in use. |
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| cab |
Don't worry, global warming will make drilling in the arctic and antarctic cheaper. Hooray! 
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| vegplot |
I don't suppose and additional 14 metres of sea water will make much difference in the difficulty of drilling. |
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| JB |
If the train is always empty then it makes no sense. If on the other hand the choice is between running a near empty train an extra 30 or so miles from Stirling to Perth to create a reliable service then it does make sense. The alternative is to create a reputation for an unreliable service and lose customers from both the off peak and on peak services. The transport scotland report identified that there was significantly more traffic from Glasgow to Perth than Edinburgh to Perth; part of the reason they identified for that was that there was a reliable hourly service from Glasgow while the service from Edinburgh while it ran at peak times only provided nine trains a day. It's nonsense to assess the impact of a single journey on a public service; it's the effect of the service overall that needs to be examined. |
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| orangepippin |
Yes, I can see the sense of that. You need to demonstrate that the service is available before people will start to use it as an alternative to going by car. However, I still feel that this only makes sense in or near to or between urban areas.
Also, we still need to make sure that the total environmental impact is less than the private transport equivalent. All those "ghost" miles that the train does whilst you are not on it need to be taken into account. A car only emits carbon g/km when it is actually in use, whereas public transport emits even when it is not in use. |
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| vegplot |
Seems like it... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7422802.stm |
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| Rob R |
That's right, we are going to burn all the oil, like it or lump it. Trouble is that if we burn it too quickly the environment won't be able to cope with it, more critically, for us, perhaps is the fact that technology won't have advanced quickly enough to enable us to cope without it (actually a lot of the technology is already in place but our skills in using it are severely lacking). | ||||||
| RichardW |
So in that case why are we worrying about global warming & carbon footprints? It will all balance its self out once all the oil has gone. No oil no problem. Sooner its gone the better
Justme |
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| Cho-ku-ri |
I can see that argument. I also see old ladies re-using carriers bags to save the planet, as the youngsters, the ones who it matters to most, holidaying in Spain via jet. | ||||||
| Rob R |
If we put all our efforts that we currently spend worrying into developing our skills to rely less we'd all be much better off (and oil demand would go down naturally). Unfortunately there are still too many people who don't believe oil is a finite resource. Ten years ago everyone thought I was stupid going for pasture farming, ten years is a long time to make changes but a lot of people are only just realising the need to now. |
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| Treacodactyl |
What about climate change? If we burn all the oil there is it could drastically change the climate and wipe out most of the population. |
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| cab |
I know why this bit was bothering me now, I'd already read about it in the paper this morning. You're simply wrong on this claim, I believe:
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| Behemoth |
I've also seen a spokesman on TV express concern that those who are hit by the tax (which has little benefit, the cars are out there being run by people) will resent future 'green taxes' regardless of their merit. | ||||||
| vegplot |
We've burnt the bulk of it in the last hundred years or so, another 15-30 won't make a big difference immediately and it's effects are too slow to catch humans out on a species extinction/mass death ticket. We will dramtically change the climate there's almost no doubt about that. |
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| vegplot |
Perhaps it should be relabelled 'tax you now while the goings still good and we've wasted oh so much of your money already' tax |
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| Rob R |
Same reason farmers don't.
I agree. We were running tractors to keep your supermarkets in home grown mushrooms during the last fuel protests, but we had plenty in stock to keep on going, just. The links just aren't there in most peoples minds & it takes decisive action like this to make people take notice of the real problem, even if what they are proposing is not a viable long term solution to that problem & for that reason they have my support. |
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| orangepippin |
No I'm not. It was stated on R4 Today and/or 1pm news yesterday. Here is the quote: "Greenpeace executive director John Sauven said the plan to bring in higher taxes on cars which people have already bought "gives green taxes a bad name". "He said higher road tax for the most polluting cars should only apply to new cars, so people could buy a greener car - rather than being forced to pay for a choice made in the past. 2 |
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| cab |
Which is really very different to your claim, which was:
So no, Greenpeace has not criticised this for having little environmental benefit. Look at their response to the budget statement (see: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/media/press-releases/the-budget-greenpeace-response-20080312)
And thats only part of it. They're in favour of higher taxes for gas guzzlers, especially on the sale of such cars. That they're sympathetic to peoples concerns over cost doesn't change that. |
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| Behemoth |
The bloke I saw on TV last night was more of OP's interpretation.
The cars are there, people can't afford to change them, the cars stay there but are subject to higher tax. The result is no environmental benefit and resentment against such policies. This tax may influence behaviours when the next car is bought but can't apply to decisions made 7 years ago. They could sell their existing car but its value has been reduced as it now has a higher tax liability. |
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| orangepippin |
When the Greenpeace guy says the government is giving green taxes a "bad name", it sounds like a criticism to me. |
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| JB |
There seems to be a lot of resentment at what is being referred to as its 'retrospective' aspects but isn't it perfectly legitimate to change tax bandings the way they have been. After all that's effectively what happens every year that tax is raised anyway. The only way it's wrong is for labour to pretend it's a green move because it's impossible to retrospectively affect behaviour. (or did I miss something and there is some way other than their blatant cackhanded lying about it being a green move in which this does differ from previous years?) |
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| Rob R |
I've read it several times but still can't understand what you're saying?
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| Behemoth |
This is what the budget report said under the environmental sustainability section, the 'green' bit:
6.26 Fiscal measures also have an important role to play and can highlight the environmental impacts of different vehicles at the point people purchase them . 6.27 Analysis from the King Review suggests that there is a wide range of environmental performance within a particular group of cars (such as family saloons or hatchbacks). Drivers could reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fuel bills by up to 25 per cent by choosing the most efficient vehicle in its group. The review also concluded that over the long-term the technology exists to reduce the average carbon dioxide emission of new cars to 100g per km by 2020. 6.28 In order to support this target, and strengthen the environmental incentive to develop and purchase fuel-efficient cars, Budget 2008 announces reform of the vehicle excise duty (VED) structure. From 2009, VED will be restructured with new bands, based on carbon dioxide so that people gain financially by choosing the car with the best environmental performance in a given group. The financial difference between the most and least polluting cars will increase, so that making a small change in car emissions has a greater financial impact. From 2010, there will be a new higher first-year rate based on carbon dioxide emissions, to influence purchasing choices. Specific changes include: •• six new VED bands from 2009-10 – including a new top band (band M) for the most polluting cars that emit more than 255g CO2 per km; •• reducing the standard rate of VED, in 2009-10, for all new and existing cars that emit 150g of CO2 per km or less, and increasing the standard rate of VED on the most polluting cars to £425; •• from 2010-11, extending the zero rate of VED, during the first year of ownership, to all new cars that emit 130g CO2 per km or less – the EU proposed target for average new car emissions in 2012; •• holding the first-year rate for all new cars that emit between 131 and 160g CO2 per km equal to the standard rate in 2010-11; •• introducing for the most polluting cars a first-year rate of £950 in 2010-11; and •• providing a £15 or £20 discount for alternatively fuelled cars in 2009-10, and £10 in 2010-11; and aligning the alternative fuel and standard rates of VED in 2011. 6.29 As a result of these reforms, the majority of motorists will be better or no worse off in 2009. Chapter A provides further details of the new VED structure. Vehicle excise duty |
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| JB |
From 2010 the tax bands which are used to tax vehicles will change. For the higher polluting vehicles tax will be raised more than for the lower bands. This only applies to cars registered after 2001 as before that they are taxed by engine size. This happens every year in every budget. So why are people criticising it this year as being a retrospective tax? 
Edit - and as Behemoth has pointed out it is only the greenwash that they've applied to the measure which makes it look retrospective. The tax changes themselves are no different to any other year. |
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| cab |
Does indeed, but a different criticism to the one you claimed they had made, and not one supported by Greenpeaces own literature (something not unusual for Greenpeace). |
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| Behemoth |
Because the rational for the tax is to influence decisions to be made in the future but impacts on decisions that already been made. |
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| JB |
Well, no. The cackhanded lie that labour have used to justify raising taxes uses that line. VED has existed long before the green agenda existed and so introducing that justification for tiered VED is just an incompetent, ill thought out piece of tosh. The tax changes themselves are no more retrospective than any previous year. |
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| cab |
Yet scaling VED and basing it on emissions seems rather a sensible green idea, don't you think? Even removing the 'greenest' vehicles from VED entirely (although I don't know what vehicles would actually qualify for that). |
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| Behemoth |
Maybe it's just me thinking that on the whole you need to be able to set out reasons and justify changes to systems of taxation. I'm naive like that.  
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| Behemoth |
Going forward yes, applying it backwards? Well you might as well levy a tax on everyone for the profligate use of energy in the years 1963 to 1984. |
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| JB |
Oh very sensible indeed, but it's also an idea which long predates the green agenda. By creating a justification for the tax changes which is such blatant nonsense the government have just shot themselves in the foot. Had they just raised VED rates in accordance with previous years practice they could probably have done so and had the green benefit, as it is they've discredited green taxes and are heading for a situation where they may have to make another phenomenally expensive u turn. |
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| JB |
Except that they haven't changed the system of taxation, only the bands and rates. |
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| cab |
So you don't believe in encouraging people to change their vehicles by making the ones they've got less economically appealing? I wouldn't be using VED in this way at all, you understand (like, if you want to tax people for using too much fuel then tax the fuel!), but it makes sense to me to base VED on emissions of the vehicle. |
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| Behemoth |
We're talking semantics.
OK you need to justify the change in bands and rates, the impact they have on your reason for doing so. If taxation has moved from rasing revenue to fiance the functions of Governement to influence the behaviours of citizens, has the 'system/ changed. it's not the same thing it once was though the mechanisms remain the same. |
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| JB |
Except that's not what they're doing they are not going to charge people seven years of back tax for the vehicles they bought in 2001, they are going to charge a higher rate of tax this year for the vehicles they own now. (well in 2010 but you know what I mean) |
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| Rob R |
I'm assuming increasing VED will lead to either more people on lower incomes using less efficient cars (ie if the changes cause old car values to drop more than the cost of the tax increase) or more newer cars being scrapped. I've yet to make up my mind about that one.
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| orangepippin |
If I could afford to change my old X-reg Subaru for a nice new one I would ... but I can't. So this is a tax which will have no influence whatsoever on my behaviour, it will just make me even poorer. Labour seem to be trying to make a name for themselves as the party which taxes the poor! | ||||||
| JB |
I don't think you really need to. New taxes need to be justified, fundamental changes to existing tax need to be justified but changes to the level of taxation don't, prices go up, governments spend money it's not exactly surprising to see tax levels change. Even if you wanted to justify it they could just say 'to raise money for transport infrastructure' and leave it at that. They have acted with astoundingly unnecessary stupidity by inventing a spurious justification which has at best convinced noone and at worst discredited green taxes and the government and offended millions of people. |
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| cab |
Sooner or later you'll be replacing it though, yes? So there should be an incentive to persuade you to move over to a more efficient vehicle, or should there not? |
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| cab |
Thats what I don't get... The tax is scaled such that the more efficient the vehicle, the less VED you'd pay. Why is that in any way spurious? |
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| Behemoth |
In an ideal world yes. Many people don't have the capital to buy a newer vehicle but can struggle on paying the operating costs on an old one. You're asking people to shell out £3k to get a newish vehicle, the resale value of their old one has fallen. |
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| JB |
Or the tax changes will have lowered the second hand price of a gas guzzler such that it becomes more affordable to buy a less efficient car? It will have an effect on those people who are in a position to buy a new car but poorer people will effectively be forced into buying heavily taxed inefficient cars. Oh yes eventually the effect will drift through to the cheap second hand market but not for a decade or so. |
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| JB |
That's not spurious, pretending they have done it as a green move is spurious. It is also something that has come back to bite them because by so pretending that it will affect behaviour it has made people view it as a retrospective tax, i.e. they are imagining that it is a tax on decisions they made in the past. |
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| Rob R |
I can relate to that. |
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| cab |
I'm not asking people to do anything. The resale value of their old vehicle has fallen, because they've made the decision to buy a vehicle that is less efficient and now there is more VED on that vehicle. But, if said tax was instead on cars resold, then the resale price would still be affected. Unless we say that we only start banding based on emissions from now onwards, then you're stuck with that. The bottom line is that taxing based on environmental damage will hurt. There isn't any getting around that, unless instead you want to water those taxes down to the point where they don't achieve the desired aim, which in this case is to persuade people when they upgrade to move to a more efficient vehicle. That'll hurt people because the resale price of less efficient vehicles is lower; do you have a solution that achieves the desired goal without simply watering down the tax change so far that it does not impact upon vehicles that are already on the market? |
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| Northern_Lad |
True, although the daftness of the situation is that my car could have been registered 9 months later and I'd be paying £100 less per year in tax. My exact model was made for at least 2 years after mine was registered.. |
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| cab |
I don't know whether it'll take that long. I should really ask one of my brothers. |
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| Northern_Lad |
I'll stop you there because your starting premise is incorrect. I bought the most efficient and practical car to meet my needs within my budget. The taxing has changed since I purchased it so could not have been a factor in my decision making. |
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| cab |
Why? If their motivation was to persuade people to move to more efficient cars, and their decision was to have higher tax on the less efficient vehicles and scale accordingly... Sorry, no, I don't see why you keep saying that doing this on green grounds is a spurious claim. It isn't how I'd have done it, but I can see the sense in it.
It isn't any more so than many other taxes though. Bottom line here is that Britain is in love with motoring, and this is seen as the state putting its nose in where peoples vehicle choice is concerned. There are a lot of rationalisations for why people don't like it, all of them dancing around that central British car-loving dogma. |
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| cab |
I'm a little confused by your circumstances, can you explain in terms that might make sense to me? |
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| Behemoth |
Off the top of my head, referring to the budget, it's a method of influencing purchasing decisions, so you apply the change when the car next changes hands and you inform the DVLA you are the new keeper. | ||||||
| Northern_Lad |
Going to have to be brief as I'm about to disapear for 5 days... Basically, my car was registered in 2000, before the new bands were sorted. The exact same car was still made afte the bands were sorted. The cars registered in 2001 cost about £100 per year |
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| cab |
Oh, got it. Sorry, I was clearly being a bit of a divvy. Seems more sensible (to me at least) to flatten it all out right across the board. |
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| JB |
Tiered VED rates existed in previous years and rose year on year in the past. At that time these were not green taxes. The government has done nothing different this year and yet somehow these taxes have spontaneously become a green move this year? I suppose the question really is do you beleive that the government has raised tax because they think it will help the environment or because they think it will help their coffers? If it's the latter then the greenwash they've put over the top of it is just so much hogwash.
Now there I'd agree with you. |
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| Behemoth |
Exactly, influence future behaviours. In the meantime people will keep driving the same car until they have to or can afford to change their car. In the mean time they'll just pay more tax. |
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| cab |
I'm sure that tiered VED based on emissions and/or engine size has been defended on environmental grounds for a lot longer than that.
It isn't an either or question though. Clearly its designed to make money, but it is designed to change behaviour too. The real problem with green taxation is what to do if it works, and people do all change their behaviour... Then where does the tax revenue come from? |
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| cab |
And because they're paying more tax, the decision to move to a more efficient vehicle sooner rather than later makes sense. |
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| JB |
Or because their vehicle is subject to higher tax it will be worth less on the second hand market so they will have less to spend on a new vehicle and because they have been paying those higher tax rates they will have even less to spend so they will end up having buy something cheap and second hand such as a second hand gas guzzler. All part of labours 'tax the poor' policy. |
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| cab |
Green taxes will hurt, and being based on use of resources rather than ability to pay they'll hurt the poor disproportionately hard. As I've said, ain't my policy. But here the plan would appear to be to reduce the value of gas guzzlers faster than more effiient vehicles; they'll reach the point where maintaining them is beyond economic sense more rapidly, it should get them off the road faster. Will that cost those with less money proportionately more? Yes. Who claimed that green taxes were socialist taxes? |
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| Rob R |
That is exactly the situation I envisage when I next buy a vehicle. |