"Only trouble is, by their reckoning, the entry level Morgan is greener than the Toyata Prius."
What a choice - a highly desirable, beautiful motor, built by engineers with charisma or a Toyota.
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I saw the story on thr front of the Telegraph too.
Trouble is El Gordo's: "I feel your pain and I'm the right man to do something about it" bullasterisk is followed by a quote from the Treasury to the effect that no decision will be made before the autumn pre-budget report.
In other words they hope if they delay a few months, the problem will go away.
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>In other words they hope if they delay a few months, the problem will go away.
Problem is, in this country, so long as you dont up the alcohol duty that tactic may actually work...
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If Brown resorts to gesture politics, it has to be a cut in the price of fuel - however that is engineered.
Cheaper fuel would have a more or less immediate impact on everyone.
Tinkering with VED only becomes relevant at renewal time.
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"It's going to cost money but we found money for 10p tax so if we have to borrow a bit more for this, so be it."
Err, no!... Spend the money you are getting more wisely, thats what us ordinary people have to do.... The Gov setting us all a good example - borrow yourself into trouble - and they wonder why we've lost faith in them!
Would agree with the last post - keep the price of fuel as low as possible - the road fund licence is supposed to be a tax on "dirty" cars so the rises should stay to (try) to get people to buy cleaner cars (if thats possible with i/c engines!).
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It seems a `no win` situation for them really.
If the tax situation is now reversed there will surely still be a lot of resentment at the U turn from (very low mileage) owners who have sold their luxo-Barges.
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The Morgan could become the default fleet car? Brilliant fantasy! Would certainly make for more interesting traffic jams on a wet Monday morning. The Micky d's wrappers and Costa fortune coffee beakers normally carelessly tossed in the passenger footwells to be replaced by pots of Gentlemans Relish and water biscuits equally carelessly discarded into wicker hampers nonchalantly balanced on the parcel shelf. The chain store suit jacket ubiquitously swinging on its wire hanger in the back window to be superseded by a carefully dishevelled wax coat stuffed with devil may care abandon behind the seat? Photocopier salesmen greeting female clients with a Lesley Phillipsesque " Well helloo there! "? All topped off with a return to a penchant for string back gloves, donning flat caps backwards, good brogues and tweed jackets?
Love the image !
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I like your world - there'd be no fag ends at the side of the road as everyone would use cigarette holders and motorcyclists would revert to Barbour jackets and open face helmets.
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motorcyclists would revert to Barbour jackets and open face helmets.
some of us never discarded them! :-)
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That's a relief Harleyman...
No denim jackets with the sleeves cut off and embroidery like a 19th century trade union banner on the back then, to go with a beard full of crab lice and Levi 'originals' (fourteen years old and never washed or taken off)?
Come to think of it you never sounded at all like that. But it is a powerful Harley stereotype nonetheless.
:o}
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Let's imagine that in your fantasy world the Treasury found the money to cut the price of fuel by 20p per litre, starting next week. That would leave fuel at something like £1.10 round here. And in two or three months, based on the current rate of increase, it would be back up to £1.30 again. Only this time most of the extra money would be going the pockets of the oil companies and the government would have even fewer options. Cutting fuel duty by a penny or two, which is more realistic, would have no effect at all. It would be wiped out in the time it takes to drive between petrol stations.
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"in your fantasy world the Treasury found the money to cut the price of fuel by 20p"
They seem to expect us to find the money to pay the extra 20p a litre - why shouldn't we expect them to economise a little?
And don't tell me that there isn't colossal waste in Gov spending that couldn't be saved.
"it would be back up to £1.30 again. Only this time most of the extra money would be going the pockets of the oil companies"
Price would have to go up higher than that for "most" of the extra money to go to the oil companies.
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The problem with it is not that its a lot of money in tax, but that its being applied retrospectively. In 2003, when buying a new Mondeo 2.0 Auto Estate, you had absolutely no way of knowing that, 6 years later, your road tax would double. And now it has, what are you supposed to do?
a) Keep the car, pay more tax. This helps the environment how?
b) Sell the car. Buy a green car. Somebody else buys your Mondeo and drives it. This helps the environment how?
c) Scrap your car. Buy a new car. This clearly isn't going to happen.
If its applied to new cars people can make a decision BEFORE they buy or order the construction of a new vehicle. But applying it to used cars is devoid of ANY logic.
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baskerville said >> Let's imagine that in your fantasy world the Treasury found the money to cut the price of fuel by 20p per litre, starting next week. That would leave fuel at something like £1.10 round here. And in two or three months, based on the current rate of increase, it would be back up to £1.30 again. >>
I don't think that rate of increase can be right. I think I read somewhere the other day that $5 on the cost of a barrel of crude means 0.42p per litre at the pump.
Sound about right, anyone?
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I'm just going on what I observe. I fill up about once a month. May's fuel cost 9p per litre more than April's--I just checked the book. Same garage.
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The problem with it is not that its a lot of money in tax but that its being applied retrospectively. In 2003 when buying a new Mondeo 2.0 Auto Estate you had absolutely no way of knowing that 6 years later your road tax would double.
When you bought that car in 2003, it was taxed from the outset on CO2 emissions, which were already published in tables in WhatCar etc for comparison. Given all the barrage of publicity around CO2 and global warming, you'd have had to have your head buried very firmly in the sand not to expect the rates on higher-CO2 cars to increase substantially at some point.
That 2.0 Mondeo auto estate falls into the other end of the same VED band that I'm in with my Almera; it's going to be £260 a year next year. That's only a £100 increase from when it was bought, which is a heck of a lot less than the increase in fuel price.
So what to do now? Keep the car, since you have already paid for it, and use it less. That £100 tax increase only amounts to the same as about 600 miles worth of fuel.
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So what to do now?
Vote the xxxxxx lot out and let the Tories bring in a sensible system of taxation. The whole complex and monster of a tax system that Brown has created needs to be sent to the dump and crushed. To be replaced with a simple and fair system as proposed by Cameron. Sooner the Better.
Edited by jbif on 24/05/2008 at 13:26
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> To be replaced with a simple andfair system as proposed by Cameron. Sooner the Better.
Oh dear, i do hope no one really believes anything any politician tells them they are going to do when they win power (other than line their own pockets that is).
I note the other parties are being quite silent about these ved changes, except for general rhetoric, which they're all good at.
If you can quote me a irreversible commitment by any politician to reverse the retrospective ved changes, i may just have to eat me hat of course, won't hold the breath though.
Don't think i really care who runs the country badly any more, difficult to see whose nose in the trough deepest anyway.
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When you bought that car in 2003 it was taxed from the outset on CO2 emissions which were already published in tables in WhatCar etc for comparison. Given >> all the barrage of publicity around CO2 and global warming you'd have had to have your head buried very firmly in the sand not to expect the rates on higher-CO2 cars to increase substantially at some point.
But it should not be about guesswork. It was not published as such.
That 2.0 Mondeo auto estate falls into the other end of the same VED band that I'm in with my Almera; it's going to be £260 a year next year. That's only a £100 increase from when it was bought which is a heck of a lot less than the increase in fuel price.
Fair enough. Use my car as an example then - 02 530i Sport. £210 to £430.
So what to do now? Keep the car since you have already paid for it and use it less. That £100 tax increase only amounts to the same as about 600 miles worth of fuel.
Exactly - which is what of course I will do. But how does this benefit the environment in any way? It doesnt - it has zero effect on emissions at all.
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When you bought that car in 2003 it was taxed from the outset on CO2 emissions which were already published in tables in WhatCar etc for comparison. Given all the barrage of publicity around CO2 and global warming you'd have had to have your head buried very firmly in the sand not to expect the rates on higher-CO2 cars to increase substantially at some point.
Once again someone tries to make this point - and it continues to be absolute and undiluted rubbish.
If the reason for CO2 based taxation is to save the environment as we are assured, then we would be absolutely justified in a belief that once a car has been produced and its tax rate is set, it would not change again (beyond the usual £5 or so extra a year).
There is no green justification for changing the rate on cars which already exist.
I am getting very impatient with people telling me I should have known better. All the evidence based on what the government had done before, and all the evidence based on the fact that this is called a green issue point to these changes not being made retrospective, which is what this government have chosen to do, immorally, in the latest budget.
I find it very insulting that you suggest I have my head buried in the sand when in fact I have made decisions based perfectly on what has gone before - what has happened here is that the government has done exactly the opposite of what was done in previous years (2001 and 2006).
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Bazza, i'm extremely envious, you put things so much better than me.
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... devoid of ANY logic
The only logic they understand is how to raise money from tax.
If they really wanted to reduce UK's CO2 emissions, they would target the areas that produce the most return for least expenditure, i.e do a proper cos-cenefit analysis and then act on the findings.
For example, give full grants for every house insulated to the fullest extent possible. Or, give every house a supply of free energy saving lamps. Then have a tariff for gas and electricity whereby after the first X amount of consumption at a basic rate, the price goes up exponentially.
Logically, if they are serious about emissions, then they should retrospectively apply an annual tax on badly insulated old homes - especially those without cavity wall insulation - and see how popular the tax is with the electorate.
There is no logic in any of it, as their threat to tax plastic bags demonstrates. Ireland has seen its use of plastic go up because people are buying thicker plastic bags and dustbin liners to replace the thin ones they used to get free from supermarkets.
They should be thinking of removing the disparity between the system of road & fuel taxes between UK and the Continent. As it is, you have foreign registered trucks filling up with diesel on the other side of the channel and not paying any road-tax either.
All their policies are devoid of logic, and sooner the electorate get rid of bottler Brown, and his lightweight government, the better.
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Cavity-wall insulation? See what Jeff Howell (Sunday Telegraph) has to say about it first:
www.ask-jeff.co.uk/jeff_howell.htm
"After loft insulation, the best heat-saving measure you can take is to draught-proof your doors and windows. Secondary glazing is also worth considering. But, if you are determined to have your cavity walls insulated, then foam or bonded polystyrene beads, which cannot settle in the cavity, and which are less likely to allow moisture to cross it, are probably the best bet. The worst option is blown mineral fibre, which, whatever the advertising might claim, is certainly not backed by science."
And, struggling to get motoring-relevant . . . one of the most convincing revisions to the taxes on motoring would be to stop charging VAT on fuel duty (aka fuel tax) -- a tax charged on another tax is about as hostile as it gets.
Edited by Roger Jones on 24/05/2008 at 13:36
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if you are determined to have your cavity walls insulated
I used that example as the other insulation measures can be retrofitted to almost all homes, whereas if your house has no cavity, then you can't cavity insulate it.
In other words, penalising homes without cavity wall insulation would be similar to penalising those people who bought a high emission car before the new tax rates and bands were announced. In both cases, you would be faced with the choice of either paying the penalty or lose value or scrap the home/car in order to move on to a new lower emission home/car.
I hope that makes sense!
As for Nowwheel's point about cars lasting 10 years and houses lasing 100 years, that is so only because the incentive in the West is to "consume" and "dump" old stuff to replace with "new" stuff. If there was a "showroom tax" of say about 20% on the purchase any new stuff and similarly a 20% charge for "scrapping" stuff, you would soon see a change to making things last. Alternatively, if manufacturers had to pay a tax based on the design life of most products and were forced to offer free 10 year labour+parts guarantees on stuff, and to provide a facility in the town centre for all "end of life" stuff to be deposited, the throwaway society would virtually disappear overnight.
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Logically if they are serious about emissions then they should retrospectively apply an annual tax on badly insulated old homes - especially those without cavity wall insulation - and see how popular the tax is with the electorate.
Most houses last more than 100 years, but cars last on average about ten years (or maybe a little more). When cars are being replaced anyway, it makes sense to use the tax-system to encourage people to buy less polluting ones. And with new homes, the energy-efficiency standards are being jacked up massively to the point where in a few years a house will have to be nearly carbon-neutral in use; the equivalent in car terms would simply be to ban the sale of anything over say 100g/km of emissions.
What car drivers forget is that the cost of motoring fell massively in real terms for about 15 years, while the cost of public transport skyrocketed. The latest changes only go some way to restoring the relative costs back to where they were 15 years ago.
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I despise this current Government with a passion. However, Young David is firmly in the Green Brigades pockets. I have some nervousness about his ideas and love of 'green issues'.
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However, Young David is firmly in the Green Brigades pockets. I have some nervousness about his ideas and love of 'green issues'.
I have it on good authority that he is listening to arguments which show that the best way to tackle green issues is to first identify an order of "cost-benefit" to each measure.
For example, it is stupid for Westminster Council to provide free electricity and free parking for Electric cars, because the effect on the environment in the production of the Electric car as well as the Electricity is far greater than that for an equivalent power conventional petrol car.
Edited by jbif on 24/05/2008 at 14:02
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Maybe so NW, but politicians arguments that we should stump up all these extra costs would carry more weight if we saw them facing the same problems. Instead, all we hear is all the free first class travel they claim, limousines, £10,000 pound kitchens, Sky TV subscriptions, TV licence, mock-Tudor boards on the house, council tax etc etc. And these claims are from people who get a free "grace and favour home".
Is there any evidence at all that there lives are being affected by the impositions they put on the rest of us?
Perhaps they should set a teeny-weeny example? I can't imagine that the tax system is encouraging them to become less polluting.
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"What car drivers forget is that the cost of motoring fell massively in real terms for about 15 years, while the cost of public transport skyrocketed. The latest changes only go some way to restoring the relative costs back to where they were 15 years ago."
Can you point us to some numbers to back this up?
On zero-carbon homes, I heard someone speaking with apparent authority about this recently and he was saying that the key thing is to stop the passage of air in and out. What sound and healthy residence does not require good exchange of air with the outside -- viz. dampness, fungal growth, human health, etc.? Or is the answer to seal the building and introduce an energy-consuming air-conditioning system? Draught-proofing, yes, but comprehensive sealing?
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"What car drivers forget is that the cost of motoring fell massively in real terms for about 15 years, while the cost of public transport skyrocketed. The latest changes only go some way to restoring the relative costs back to where they were 15 years ago."
You're not an MP are you. :)
The last person I heard making a comment like that was a member of our illustrious Government. I'm sure they make a nice, tidy profit every time they fill up their cars. Taxpayer funded expense account anyone.
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someone said: >> Young David is firmly in the Green Brigades pockets. I have some nervousness about his ideas and love of 'green issues'. >>
The Green Brigade seem to wield clout out of all proportion to their numbers and remind me of the PC Brigade in the last gasp of the last century who talked nothing but bullasterisks and got us into a position from which we're now desperately trying to recover.
One of the "green" organisations has Michael Palin as life president, or some other important sounding title. Now I like Michael Palin, but isn't he the bloke who keeps flying round the planet with film, sound and production crews and then presumably uses CO2 producing transport when he arrives at each destination?
Thinking that making me pay more VED while the new man-made island off the coast of (is it?) Dubai has the biggest carbon footprint on the planet will have a beneficial overall effect is just nonsense.
We need to split taxes to do with cars from "green" issues. Nothing wrong with a bit of honesty. Except it just becomes a bit more difficult for El Gordo and Darling to try and justify what they're up to.
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Good news, everyone. I've just scrapped the Accord (it's only a couple of years old, but it seemed the most humane thing to do), and bought a brand new fuel efficient car. Now I can sleep easy over my carbon emissions.
What idiots. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach go into politics.
No offence intended to any teachers.
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Since I'm never going to own a car in the upper VED classes I'm not too concerned about VED. After all, it's only a small proportion of the total costs. I'm much more concerned about fuel costs, and in that I include domestic heating oil which has gone up 90% in the last 16 months.
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"What car drivers forget is that the cost of motoring fell massively in real terms for about 15 years"
In the other thread with the You-tube links to the old Leyland ads the Morris Ital was going for 5,750 or thereabouts and that would have been about 1980. I think that's a lot of money. It's twice what my parents paid for their first house some ten years prior to that.
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I am amazed that they are still allowed to get away with peddling this CO2 nonsense that has been thoroughly debunked.
Mother Nature produces 200billion tons of the stuff each year, we are responsible for 7billion tons, so what difference are we going to make? Even ignoring the fact that CO2 rises lag, not lead, global warming.
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Crunch_time, can you tell me where you got these figures from? I'd like to read more on this.
P E
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VED being a fixed cost, cannot affect CO2 emissions. People who do decide to shift their high band cars will just pass the emissions on to a new owner. This is far less about CO2 than it is about pounds and pence.
Adding 7 billion tonnes of CO2 to a 200 billion total is more than enough to throw a delicate balance out of kilter, but your second point is very valid, has sound scientific backing, and is either conveniently swept under the carpet by the green lobby, or abused.
The whole thing is about nothing more than giving anti-capitalists a new angle, and justifying both tax rises and micromanagement of our lives (particularly with regard to "naughty" activities such as driving) on the part of governments. In my humble opinion, of course.
With the government facing an almost certain prospect of being kicked out of office by an increasingly angry electorate come the next election, but with treasury coffers full of little more than a few billion IOUs, I am intrigued to see how this gets played.
Cheers
DP
Edited by DP on 25/05/2008 at 00:47
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When the Guardianistas have run out of excuses for the latest tax increases on motorists they always wheel out this old piece of bovine excrement don't they?
>What car drivers forget is that the cost of motoring fell massively in real terms for about 15
>years, while the cost of public transport skyrocketed. The latest changes only go some way to
>restoring the relative costs back to where they were 15 years ago.
Well, the cost of bananas, TVs and kids clothes have also fallen in real term over the last 15 years. Should we restore the relative cost of everything back to where it was 15 years ago or is it just the cost of motoring?
Wanna buy a mobile phone NowWheels? It's a Motorola 8000 from the mid-80's. Cost about £1200 new, you can have it for £600 plus VAT.
Kevin...
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Hard Hat on...
VED is a means of raising money. Tax on fuel can be argued to be 'green' although actually even that with most political figures I suspect is a smoke screen. Ought to be though.
My landrover does 26 to 29 mpg on diesel. I can live with the cost of fuel, because I do not use it everyday, generally three out of seven days. But I have to pay an ownership tax which using the logic Brown/Darling apply, is because I might burn fuel. (On that basis, tax on a box of matches ought to be millions of pounds - you might set fire to Buncefield instead of lighting the gas cooker).
I am shooting myself in the foot here as I also have two historic cars with zero tax, but if a chancellor was seriously green, VED would be set for all to the level of the cost of collection, which I can't imagine to be more than £20. (It performs a good check on legality, so should not be abolished). And the lost of revenue would be raised on fuel. I suspect the cost per litre would be low as there are a number of staggeringly high mileage drivers. 'Showroom' tax though is pale green at least.
Fly in the ointment though is the fact that continental lorries often have such huge fuel tanks they can beat UK hauliers prices for trans-UK freight. That can't be right.
Can anyone see the 'Get out of Europe' argument here? Not meant as such but it is there.
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Can anyone see the 'Get out of Europe' argument here? Not meant as such but it is there.
I've always thought that, and to this day i've never met anyone who voted yes to the 'common market' back then.
I don't believe for a minute that half the politicians believe all this green propoganda any more than we do.
The whole point of peoples objections to the extreme raising of ved is that it was applied retrospectively, which was immoral and so obviously a tax raising excercise.
I don't know anyone who objects to a showroom tax or high ved or any other penalty against anyone who wishes to buy a new vehicle from this date (being today of the descision) which is considered to be a high polluter, you pays your money and makes your choice, if you can afford your £50K vehicle being effectively scrap at 5 years old so be it.
The retrospective was grossly underhand, and totally uncalled for, and unfortunately for politicians one of the great things about the peoples of these isles is that we have a bred over generations sense of fair play.
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Also a petition against VAT on fuel duty:
petitions.pm.gov.uk/NoVATonFuelDuty/
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VAT is also charged on import duty. If you bring something in from, say, the US you pay import duty at whatever rate and then VAT on top. I'll happily sign the petition but it's a reality that a tax is charged on a duty.
Someone mentioned the EU above. It's only anecdotal, I know, but I was talking to a guy who runs a marine chandlers the other day. He says the increase in cost on pleasure boat diesel (which was mysteriously treated the same as "red" diesel) this year is to harmonise us with the EU.
How come harmonisation always seems to mean tax goes up? Why can't we harmonise downwards on fuel duty?
Anyway. Nearly time for a glass of wine. Cheers all!
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Also a petition against VAT on fuel duty:
Does the PM ever comply with what is requested in an online petition?
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Does the PM ever comply with what is requested in an online petition?
I seem to remember that they declared they weren't going to pursue road pricing following petition.
Although they did then put aside £x million in the last budget to 'investigate the feasibility of road pricing', so it hardly seems what they say has any bearing on the truth, regardless of petition.
I agree with your suspicion that an easily signed and forgotten about petition from our point of view is an easily read and forgotten about petition from the politicians. Hence on the retrospective nature of the new VED rules, which I feel strongly about, I have done more - writing to the treasury through my MP and responding to their claims when they attempted to fob me off with lies and irrelevancies.
On the other hand, I also signed the petition - because it can't hurt, can it?
I wish that all the people on here who complain about the VED were willing to put the small amount of effort in needed to write to their MPs. Such direct action will do far more than signing these things.
Edited by BazzaBear {P} on 25/05/2008 at 18:22
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The whole point of peoples objections to the extreme raising of ved is that it was applied retrospectively which was immoral and so obviously a tax raising excercise.
Oh come on! It was obvious from the outset when it was introduced back in 2001 that they would start to sting the higher bands sooner or later, the only thing that surprised me is that they've taken so long to do it... There was no other reason to introduce a scheme with so many different bands - the writing was on the wall for anyone who bought a car after Y reg...
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Link to another petition on the Downing Street site.
This one to reduce VAT on fuel to 5% and to freeze duty on fuel for five years.
petitions.pm.gov.uk/cutpetrolvat/
There are others, fuel and VED related also. Worth a couple of minutes.
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Agree 100% with b308.
Take one Governmnt that spends our money like water, and a new way of taxing cars... and hey presto...
That's why I bought a £35 VED car :-)
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"Oh come on! It was obvious from the outset when it was introduced back in 2001 that they would start to sting the higher bands sooner or later, the only thing that surprised me is that they've taken so long to do it... There was no other reason to introduce a scheme with so many different bands - the writing was on the wall for anyone who bought a car after Y reg... "
Well I must be thick then, because it wasn't obvious to me it was going to go up to £400.
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Oh come on! It was obvious from the outset when it was introduced back in 2001 - the writing was on the wall for anyone who bought a car after Y reg...
Why was it obvious, they made the cut off date March 2006, and if you bought a band G after that date you would be heavily penalised, and everyone knew where they stood, so far so good. If you carry forward this argument, there would be nothing to stop a govt changing anything they didn't like retrospectively.
Its grossly dictatorial to backdate any punishment / taxes, no one has a problem at all with setting an agenda from this day forth etc, and people will either comply or not and pay accordingly.
Their new ved bandings may not be ideal, but if they applied from the date allocated following announcement, the buyer can make their choice, and thats fair in every way.
Is it now the case that we should look at everything in our lives in case they'd like to turn the clock back on something they could rake a few quid in with.
Where does it all stop, when the gov take all our earnings and give us a little pocket money, or credit on a card so they can monitor it.
Would those who have a crystal ball like to predict whats next, apart from more taxes of course, but which ones?
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Would those who have a crystal ball like to predict whats next apart from more taxes of course but which ones?
- SORN will end up with an admin fee
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- SORN will end up with an admin fee
agreed,
And when everyone has got rid of their nice cars and are diving around in a shoe, they'll realise their not getting enough revenue, so to save the planet, we'll have road pricing.
And of course we'll have to greatly increase the tax on pre 01 vehicles.
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I'd be surprised - DVLA/Police encourage its use to keep enforcement records up to date. Just reminded me I need to attach the tax disc to the bike before going to France in three weeks. Still room for one in the cottage in the Ardennnes !!
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Why was it obvious they made the cut off date March 2006 and if you bought a band G after that date you would be heavily penalised and everyone knew where they stood so far so good. If you carry forward this argument there would be nothing to stop a govt changing anything they didn't like retrospectively.
As far as I can see its not a retrospective change, they introduced a system which taxed cars in bands dependent on CO2 emmissions - they set levels and then changed them, please tell me why that is retrospective? If they had charged a Band G car at the new level, and backdated it to 2001, then I could understand your logic, but they didn't. Its just a tax increase like any other, except that it targets bigger poluters.
I suppose if you don't keep an eye on costs then it must have come as a surprise when they started making large increases to the higher bands, but to anyone who keeps tabs on their costs its pretty obvious to avoid the higher tax bands, especially as it was introduced as a "green" tax, which surely should have given people a clue?!
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"which surely should have given people a clue?!"
If they thought about it..
As I've said before, this bunch of Government wasters spend money like water.
So all taxes are going up.
They should be cutting spending but that involves thinking.
Edited by madf on 25/05/2008 at 20:24
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As far as I can see its not a retrospective change they introduced a system which taxed cars in bands dependent on CO2 emmissions - they set levels and then changed them please tell me why that is retrospective? If they had charged a Band G car at the new level and backdated it to 2001
But thats exactly what they have done, if you bought a reasonable mondeo 2.0 litre petrol in 2005 it would have cost you x pounds to tax it, come next year the same vehicles ved will vitually double, how can that not be a retrospective tax.
If they wanted to charge more for vehicles from this this years budget to encourage green ownership, the new higher charges should have been applicable to vehicles first regd after this years budget date, therefore all vehicles falling foul of the new much higher bandings have been taxed retrospectively.
It doesn't apply to me yet, as my two vehicles fall outside the problem area, and ones a commercial anyway, watch this space mind, but it does apply to many hundreds of thousands of people who bought their vehicles between 01 and 06, safe in the knowledge that a set of rules applied to them, and hey presto, wasteful gov needs more lolly to throw at anyone who'll vote for them. so i know we'll shift the rules back 5 years to get a few more hard working people to cough up a bit more of their hard earned.
Its all very well people thinking they've got away with it, if they bought a small car before the crunch, but think on, they've done this now, whats next.
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As far as I can see its not a retrospective change they introduced a system which taxed cars in bands dependent on CO2 emmissions - they set levels and then changed them
They have changed the bands which cars sit within. My car was a band F, and is now a band M. That's more than doubling the price.
I suppose if you don't keep an eye on costs then it must have come as a surprise when they started making large increases to the higher bands but to anyone who keeps tabs on their costs its pretty obvious to avoid the higher tax bands especially as it was introduced as a "green" tax which surely should have given people a clue?!
I do keep an eye on costs. I bought a car in band F, knowing that I was therefore safe from the possibility of them going overboard on the highest band.
And making it retrospective as they have - applying these changes to cars registered from 2001, not cars new at the point of introduction - means that it is not a green tax at all. There are only three possible responses to this tax change for cars already on the road:
1) Keep the car. No change made
2) Sell the car. Someone else is running it, no change made.
3) Scrap the car. A car which is in perfect working order is taken off the road well before the end of it's useful life, causing the ecological disaster of a car being scrapped and another car having to be created to replace it way before this is necessary.
Remind me of the green part?
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Oh come on! It was obvious from the outset when it was introduced back in 2001 that they would start to sting the higher bands sooner or later the only thing that surprised me is that they've taken so long to do it... There was no other reason to introduce a scheme with so many different bands - the writing was on the wall for anyone who bought a car after Y reg...
Rubbish. Using hindsight to be an apologist for an immoral and irrelevant tax rise masquerading as a green issue.
In 2001 a set of tax bands were introduced, and they were applied ONLY to new cars.
In 2006 a new band was introduced, and was applied ONLY to new cars.
The only indication we had then from past example is that changed would be made only to new cars.
They have changed the bands of cars retrospectively, and this is something they have never done before, and therefore the evidence was that this would not happen.
There is no ecological reason for applying the changes retrospectively, past actions have not done so, so it isn't obvious at all.
The only claim that could be made for it being obvious is along the lines of 'this government would always do something like this'. But that is a ridiculous argument, and could be applied to anything. Why did you buy a house with so many windows? It was obvious this government would tax them. Why do you breathe so much air? It's obvious the government would tax it.
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Darling's figures say the new rates and bands and first year charge will bring in £1.2bn in 09/10 and 10/11.
So he could afford to U-turn on the whole thing for less than half the price of u-turning on the 10p band or twice the cost of the additional tax take since fuel prices began to go up.
What it wants is for a few MP's with the gravitas of Frank Field to take the matter seriously.
This does sound very political but I think Frank Field has a car, if that's any help.
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Well I'm sorry, but I did think it was obvious, and looking at several threads on the same subject it seems I'm not the only one - also its a tax - how many of those do we see that stay the same, espcially with a Labour Gov in charge? I can see the argument against the extra bands, but again Govs have often changed and added bands (10p tax rate, enyone?) - retrospective, to me, indicates that they are charging you extra for past years, which they aren't they are just further dividing the bands which will benefit some and not others, so I still don't see it as retrospective....
I see we will have to agree to differ....
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Go and look up retrospective in the dictionary. The changes are retrospective and are unfair to any reasonable person. But you'll not change your mind, nor me mine, so we'll agree to differ and leave it at that. :-)
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Go and look up retrospective in the dictionary. The changes are retrospective and are unfair to any reasonable person. But you'll not change your mind nor me mine so we'll agree to differ and leave it at that. :-)
I have and see no reason to change my views.
I am a reasonable person... I take offence at that comment.
I agree we'll have to agree to differ.
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For me the whole approach is wrong.
The idea is we're all more environmentally conscious. Luckily for the government, the answer seems to be to burden us with more taxes. I just don't understand how this helps anything.
Sell your house and there's a £500 HIP to pay for that gives a nod to a home's environmental rating. Would this money not be better spent on making the house more efficient? A cost that does little to resolve the problem it purports to address. You end up poorer with no benefit.
You drive a car that is four years old and its tax burden doubles in that time. How does that help anything? You already have the car, had no reasonable idea its VED would double so you just wind up poorer with no benefit.
Have the termerity to take a holiday in the sun and "green" airport taxes add a huge chunk to the holiday cost. You get no benefit from this and end up poorer.
Moreover, the environment doesn't benefit from any of this either.
If paying more tax resulted in changes that made a difference, it would be easier to bear. But a government who stood up ten years ago and said "We will improve the transport system in this country in ten years, otherwise we will have failed", has failed (Prescott).
If I had a sensible alternative to my car, I would happily use it but lack of vision and investment has left us with one bus from our village into the nearest town on a Sunday. Ludicrously expensive train journeys anywhere (£230 Leeds-Reading anyone?).
They have no ideas on how to improve things at all and are just opportunist revenue raising. It's like the country is being run by the fat bloke in the Nationwide building society TV adverts.
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Moreover the environment doesn't benefit from any of this either. If paying more tax resulted in changes that made a difference it would be easier to bear.
You hit the nail on the head there....
The current system is purely a tax-raising exercise - same as tax on cigarettes - if they really wanted to stop us polluting or smoking they could do it very easily by raising the taxes (fag tax, VED or fuel duty) to such a level that we couldn't afford it and then stopped, but they don't - they are just pushing them up to see how far we will go before something (our patience?) gives and in the meantime raking it in... and wasting the money when they get it....
Seems to me like the Oil Companies are doing that last bit for them, I think its going to be their increases that break the straw, a 2p rise in fuel tax pales into insignificance compared with the 30p rise in fuel costs we've seen recently, even if some of that can be attributed to VAT!
Edited by b308 on 26/05/2008 at 12:00
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Go and look up retrospective in the dictionary. The changes are retrospective and are unfair to any reasonable person. But you'll not change your mind nor me mine so we'll agree to differ and leave it at that. :-)
If the tax was retrospective, it would be applied to actions done or moneys transferred in the past, but that's not the case here.
It doesn't matter how long you have had the car, you won't pay the increased taxes unless you go to tax it again. If you have sold it, scrapped it, or watched it being eaten by the cookie monster, you won't pay the tax, and even now you can legally not pay the tax just by taking the car off the road.
Your complaint is that you feel you didn't have enough advance warning of the tax, but that's a different matter. I didn't get advance warning that five years cigarette tax would now be so high, but I still have the option of giving up now; I didn't get advance warning that my council tax would double in a dozen years, but because it's not retrospective I still have the option of moving to cheaper accommodation rather than paying the current high tax levels.
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Congratulations. You are now using semantics because you know there is no logical argument to justify the changes being made to cars already on the road.
Whether you chose to use the word retrospective or not to describe that state of affairs is irrelevant. It is still immoral and unjustifiable.
Are you so anti-motorist and pro-green that you will even support a green policy which is not in the slightest bit green? Then you're exactly the patsy the government is relying on.
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Congratulations. You are now using semantics because you know there is no logical argument to justify the changes being made to cars already on the road. Whether you chose to use the word retrospective or not to describe that state of affairs is irrelevant. It is still immoral and unjustifiable.
It's not semantics at all. The tax was being labelled as unfair because it was allegedly retrospective, but it isn't restrospective.
Are you so anti-motorist and pro-green that you will even support a green policy which is not in the slightest bit green? Then you're exactly the patsy the government is relying on.
Actually, this new tax is pretty good on a green scale. It'd be better if the taxes on the more polluting cars were much higher, but the evidence of the effectives of this policy is shown in plenty of other threads on this forum: it has sent a very strong signal to the market that cars with higher emissions should be avoided because they'll hurt your pocket as well hurt the planet, and the market is making the necessary adjustments.
You may not think that reducing emissions is a good idea, and if so you're entitled to that belief, but for those of us who do support that objective, this policy is a useful step in the right direction. Sure, there are many many other things which should be done too, but the appalling lack of progress on so many other fronts doesn't make this step a bad one.
Calling me a patsy doesn't actually make your argument any stronger. And nor does trying to stick a simplistic "anti-motorist" label on a policy whose impact is to clean up motoring rather than ban it. Owners of the least polluting cars will actually see their road tax go down; a driver of a 1-litre Nissan Micra is getting a tax cut, funded by those like me who drive more polluting cars. It's hardly "anti-motorist" to give a tax cut to some car-drivers.
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Whether you call it retrospective or not, the issue which we are complaining about is that the tax bands have been changed for cars which are already on the road.
You claim that this is a good thing, and that it is a relevant green tax which will make a difference. Can you explain here for me exactly how doubling the tax on a car which has already been produced and is already on the road will benefit the environment?
Whether you think reducing emissions is a good idea or not is irrelevant, since making this change retrospective (or applying it to cars already on the road - which is a long winded way of saying the same thing, but I have to put it here because of your horror at me using that phrase) makes absolutely no difference to emissions at all - or at the worst makes them higher.
I'm calling you a patsy and stating it is anti-motorist because (deep breath, I'll try again) - ignore new cars, I am not arguing about the changes there - they have applied a higher tax to cars already on the road, and the only difference this will make is that they will get more money. It can not reduce emissions, there is no logical way it can - but they CALL it a green tax, and people like you lap it up, and claim that it is sending out a strong message. It is. It is sending out the message that they are robbing us, and they are lying about their motives.
You are intelligent, I know you are from earlier posts - how then can you not see this? Because your political stance does not allow you to. Attempt to look at this change with fresh eyes. Do not start with your conclusion and then decide which facts to take notice of based on that.
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Actually this new tax is pretty good on a green scale. It'd be better if the taxes on the more polluting cars were much higher but the evidence of the effectives of this policy is shown in plenty of other threads on this forum: it has sent a very strong signal to the market that cars with higher emissions should be avoided because they'll hurt your pocket as well hurt the planet and the market is making the necessary adjustments.
How can you possibly think that? In what way is good on the green scale? Please tell me what GREEN decision it could encourage ME to make?
If it applied to the purchase of new cars only I would agree with you, it would influence the decisions to order new cars, and if somebody decides not to order it as a result of the taxation it isn't then sold to someone else - it could remain unbuilt.
But how does this apply to used cars people already own? If I decide to sell my 229g/km car becuase of the tax (Which I use to cover less than 5k miles a year) it wont cease to exist. Somebody else will buy it (And probably use a lot more than me).
So come on then NowWheels, given you appear to think you know so much about why this tax is a good idea - please tell me what its supposed to make me do, green wise, and why its a good thing that its retrospective?
Perhaps you like it becuase you appear to be a bit socialist and feel 'punishing' people for having nice things is good..
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Well I'm sorry but I did think it was obvious and looking at several threads on the same subject it seems I'm not the only one - also its a tax - how many of those do we see that stay the same espcially with a Labour Gov in charge?
Well it is not obvious based on any logical reason for changing the tax in this way.
Rather than just patronizingly telling us how obvious it was, and how stupid we've been, why don't you explain clearly what made it obvious that this change would be made?
Yes - taxes go up. I would have expected the individual bands to go up by £5 or £10, like they do every year. I would even expect the highest band to jump up by a lot, to appease the tree huggers. I would not expect my band F car to suddenly become a band M car, more than doubling the rate.
As I have said before, and as you have failed to try to refute - just resorting to saying 'it's obvious' again and again, there is no green basis for the changes (which are retrospective. My car which was already on the road and already had a tax band applied to it has been re-banded retrospectively ).
If you had a band D house for council tax, and one year the government said, we've rebanded - your house is now a band Z, and we're going to charge you twice as much for it, would you say it was an obvious change? You should have expected it, right? Because governments raise taxes, therefore it was stupid of you to own that house. It was always going to happen.
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If you had a band D house for council tax and one year the government said we've rebanded - your house is now a band Z and we're going to charge you twice as much for it would you say it was an obvious change? You should have expected it right? Because governments raise taxes therefore it was stupid of you to own that house. It was always going to happen.
That happens every time there is a revaluation, whether under the old rates system or under council tax. If you had bought a house a few decades ago a house in a scummy area which has now been gentrified (think Islington in the 1960s), then come the revaluation it'll jump several notches up the scale to reflect the massive increase.
It doesn't mean that you were stupid to buy the house, and it's not retrospective, because you have a choice of continuing to live there (and hence pay the tax), or selling up and moving to a place with cheaper tax.
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Well number one headline on Radio 4's World at One - looks like the pressure may be starting now.
Edited by Pugugly on 26/05/2008 at 14:15
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NowWheels,
If you listen to the W@1 on R4, you'll hear Labour MP's referring to it as a retrospective tax. I think its down to semantics i.e. swings on how you define "retrospective"
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Sorry if this labours a point but there does seem to be a bit of tail chasing going on above.
I think it would be quite difficult to argue the case against discouraging the future purchase of high emission / high consumption vehicles. Fair enough really.
The key point for me is the imposition of additional cost on existing vehicles.
We do not get additionally taxed on booze long since purchased but not yet consumed or tobacco bought last year but so far unsmoked. If it becomes apparent that the production of a pair of trousers bought three years ago but still in use contributed unreasonably to global warming we would not expect to suddenly have to pay a fee every time we wear them.
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And if those with recent cars hit by the moved goalposts sell them and buy new cars less burdened with VED, what on earth does that do to benefit the environment? I do not advocate trying to limit the manufacture of new vehicles -- totally unrealistic -- but that would make a significant environmental impact, especially if the maintenance and testing of older vehicles were tightened up and brought more fully within the law (e.g. a fine if you don't have your car serviced every year). The proposed changes seem likely to shorten the working life of perfectly usable cars and increase the sales of new cars in the lower VED bands -- an inversion of environmental sense if I ever saw one. And I doubt that the environmental impact of manufacturing a Prius is much less than that of a Range Rover, if at all.
The best environmental solution is self-evident: use fuel tax as the sole source of government income from motoring. Thus, the more environmental impact -- lower mpg, more miles -- the more is paid out, with owners of 30k-a-year SUVs paying out 20 times and more than those of 3k-a-year micro cars. And it's not as if it were a minor income stream as presently structured, is it? Pure "polluter pays" principle, as advocated by environmental economists for decades.
I care about the environment. I do wish its future were being approached with more common sense than self-serving political rhetoric.
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It doesn't mean that you were stupid to buy the house and it's not retrospective because you have a choice of continuing to live there (and hence pay the tax) or selling up and moving to a place with cheaper tax.
And if I sell my car, does that benefit the environment? No. So what is the reason for this tax?
And in a similar manner, were I to sell up and move (oh what a splendid government we have to allow us that choice) I would lose a huge amount because of the changes made.
My Goodness ! How arrogant! The government can do as they like! They can tax us out of house, car, holiday! We have a choice! We can just sell up, live in a cardboard box, walk ten miles to work, holiday on a campsite - we have no reason to complain. We should celebrate tehm giving us this choice as they screw us into the ground!
However, this is again digressing from the subject. There is one stated claim for the changes made: to benefit the environment.
I ask again: How does overtaxing a car already on the road benefit the environment?
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 26/05/2008 at 21:01
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Nowheels,
if your Almera auto got hammered in next years budget, really badly.. and it wasn't just for new ones, but back dated to 2001, how would you feel if someone driving an Aygo or similar said "oh well, down to you, you should have seen it coming"...when in reality there was no indication 'it was coming' because prior to this budget any changes have only affected new cars.
so you sell it...to someone else...who keeps driving it. There's no environmental benefit in that, the Almera is still going...but..you're fuelling new car building because you're buying either a new one or second hand one which assists someone else to buy a new one.
the bottom line is taxation, not the govt worrying about green issues. It's immoral because it is underhand and sneaky. If they need more money, admit it, tell the public why and put up income tax..don't try and have us over...some of us are not that stupid.
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We can just sell up livein a cardboard box walk ten miles to work holiday on a campsite - we have no reason to complain.
Bazza. you have the full agreement here of SWMBO, she only adds one thing that you missed out, that when we've outlived our usefulness, and retired from work, we should hurry up and die so as not to be a burden to the government.
Although she thinks they may already be working on that one, when the inside the head chip is perfected. Who needs robots?
I can't believe that some here are so blinkered in their appreciation of whats been done, it would seem as long as some govt parasite (no distinction between the parties, there's no difference anyway) mentions the word 'green' or 'environment' somewhere, they have carte blanche to do exactly as they want, and a whole devoted band of lemmings cheer enthusiastically, and follow the piper over the hill.
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Someone said: >> Owners of the least polluting cars will actually see their road tax go down; a driver of a 1-litre Nissan Micra is getting a tax cut, funded by those like me who drive more polluting cars. It's hardly "anti-motorist" to give a tax cut to some car-drivers. >>
Great if we all had families that can conveniently fit into one of the smallest cars on the road. We don't. And it's naive, isn't it, to believe that it's because of you that the Micra driver pays less? That's to suggest that VED is somehow ring-fenced and used only in relation to motoring matters. It ain't.
If this government had wanted to influence people's choices and reduce pollution they would have discussed their proposals with the motor manufacturers so that, for new cars, they could have re-designed and re-mapped engines to reduce pollutant emissions. They didn't so, even on new cars, you get quite modest vehicles falling into highish VED brackets because of a few grams of extra CO2. What they did was to raise the VED like putting a few extra pence on a bottle of wine: starting from now on cars as they were at that point, including those bought some years ago.
It's unfortunate if you own a car that was bought some time back and will cost you more. But it's not really a retrospective tax because it only costs you more from some date in the future. The logic is that it's the pollution that gives rise to the charge, not the date of the acquisition. That makes me sound as though I approve of it. I don't. But I think you have to view it as just another clumsy revenue raising measure.
Remember the time before we had insurance premium tax? Then we had it. Why do we have to pay a tax on an insurance premium? To raise money. No more complicated than that. This is the same.
Edited by Optimist on 26/05/2008 at 15:45
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There are a number of problems with the retrospective and new VED rates.
For starters, they are claimed to be "green taxes" but they are nothing of the sort. The tax is purely a tax which nuLabour thought they could get away with by labelling it green. The new VED rates will persuade some people who are penny rich but pound poor (or who are penny wise but pound foolish) to downsize thier cars, but not those people who can do some simple maths. The trend to "downsize" will lead to premature scrapping of cars and have a net negative effect on the environment, as has been demonstrated by others.
If cutting down on fuel use and CO2 for green reasons is the main aim, then the oil price hike is doing that very well.
see www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/22/gordon_brown_opec.../
nuLabour or any other party is welcome to impose whatever tax it wants to, but first they have to tell the electorate at the election what their plans are. With nuLab, we have been told lies (Promise to solve transport problems within 10 years when elected in 1997, no new taxes, Tony Blair's promise to serve the full 3rd term, crime and the causes of crime, 10p tax rate, .... ). During the good times, it was claimed to be because of their policies. Now it is all due to global forces beyond their control!
I think maybe Nowwheels would prefer "(wo)mankind" to return to the original No-wheels status, i.e. uninvent the wheel, reduce the world population to 1 million or less or whatever it was in the days when the humans lived in caves in a "socialist" society.
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In the real world if this happens there will be an increase in untaxed and cloned cars. Really any Civil Service worth its salt would ensure that all the enforcement issues are ironed out before its implementation.
On another angle it seems that Parliamentary Democracy my be making a rather late return to this country.
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Well it is not obvious based on any logical reason for changing the tax in this way. Rather than just patronizingly telling us how obvious it was and how stupid we've been why don't you explain clearly what made it obvious that this change would be made?
I've already said, several times:
- It was introduced back in 2001 as a "green" tax
- Its split into bands where the higher poluters pay more
- The Gov indcated that they intended to tax higher polluters at the time it was introduced
I'm not being patronising or calling you stupid, just pointing out that anyone who had looked carefully at this tax back in late 2000 would ask first "why bother doing it this way?", and then come to the conclusion that things will only get worse for the higher bands... trouble is most people didn't look at it at all and just carried on putting they tenners worth of fuel and buying whatever they wanted to run... the only ones that did were those of us who run a car on a tight budget and therefore examined anything which might make a difference, or the Greens. The writing was on the wall for everyone to see back then, if they had bothered looking... My argument is that it was clear what they were going to do, so trying to blame the Gov for the rises doesn't wash - you may not like that view, but its mine and I'm sticking to it - one of the few times I've actually read the future correctly!
Edited by b308 on 26/05/2008 at 20:38
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- It was introduced back in 2001 as a "green" tax - Its split into bands where the higher poluters pay more
But now they are completely changing the bands. Thats the point.
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I've already said several times: - It was introduced back in 2001 as a "green" tax
Hence my not expecting it to be suddenly re-applied ina way which has no effect on the environment.
- Its split into bands where the higher poluters pay more
And my car was allocated a band, hence my surprise at it suddenly - retrospectively if you will - being re-allocated to a completely different band. A band which didn't even exist when I bought the car.
- The Gov indicated that they intended to tax higher polluters at the time it was introduced
But they never indicated they intended to go back and re-define what a high polluter was.
What they've done here goes against what they've done before. I have to say that if you truly did see this coming, then you misread the situation. It's just that the governments greed and lack of morals led to them moving the goalposts to where you already thought they were.
By the way, on the subject of the word 'retrospective'.
What you and Nowwheels are referring to is a charge being levied retrospectively. What the rest of us are referring to is a tax rate being applied retrospectively. This is the difference in understanding of the phrase. Although it continues to not make any difference what you call it - it's still wrong.
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Some good arguments here!
My two-pennorth, for what it is worth is this.
1. The fact that the tax is "retrospective" in this instance is irrelevant. I thought I was going to pay 22p in the £ income tax until the budget - it is now going to be 20p. - that's "retrospective" - but I'm not complaining - though, of course, many will because in order to do that GB removed the 10p tax band ( and even his recent u-turn still leaves a couple of million people disadvantaged) - the problem here is that the poor are disadvantaged - makes it an unfair tax change.
2. The change in VED bands is again going to affect the "poor" (no offence) the most. The family who run a 6 year old, 100k miles, 2 litre Mondeo (or somesuch) in which to house their family will have to pay another £200 VED. They often do not have the choice of saying "Well in view of the increase in VED let's nip out and buy an Aygo". So in most cases all it does is increase the tax revenue without changing emissions etc.
3. It will have no effect on those who can afford new big cars - if you are spending £50k on a Range Rover an extra few hundred quid on purchase (?) tax and VED will not change your decision - you will still not go out and choose an Aygo instead.
4. The "Green Tax" issue is a nonsense. Firstly because any effect of changing "emissions" with these tax changes in Britain will have NO effect on global emissions and secondly, the Gov collects this money as "Green Tax" and does NOTHING with it towards Green issues - it just goes in the pot marked "Waste on useless initiatives" subtitled "Consultants"
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This issue is now picking up some momentum in the media - piece on 5 live and news on teletext.
Potential to be as damaging as the 10p rate abolition as the increase puts more burden on those running older cars, many of which run older cars because with a family that is all they can afford and as we know plenty of 'normal' family cars will be hit by huge increases.
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"Over a 10 year period...I think the direction we have been going in has been clear to people at the time,"
This is what Ms Ruddock our Environment Secretary has said.
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There's a lot of mention of the "poor" that will be affected - if they are so "poor" why would they choose to buy a 2.0L Mondeo (as suggested) - surely if they were so badly off they would choose either a smaller car or a smaller engined Mondeo?
I wonder if these are the same "poor" who can afford to go to the pub every weekend and smoke 20 fags a day?
Different priorities, perhaps?
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That's what Angela Eagle said to me by letter too - must be the live they've been told to use. She's being a bit slow to respond to my pointing out that on past evidence it's not consistent at all though.
If this has been clearly the direction they were going to take for 10 years, then why didn't my car become a band G in 2006?
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Hopefully the recent local elections, the London Mayoral elections, and the Crewe and Nantwich by-election will help. It's amazing what politicians can pull out of a hat when they're faced with the sack, and they underestimate the strength of feeling in the country about general tax levels and the cost of living at their peril.
Perhaps they might also remember 1997 as a good example of what happens to a government when they repeatedly ignore the people. The British stiff upper lip only washes for so long.
I think they'll do something. What, remains to be seen.
Cheers
DP
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The Tories have already indicated that they like so called "green" taxes so I'm not sure what a different Gov would do and if the Liberals got a toe-hold I recon things could get even worse!
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I think that b308 is being a bit over-critical. Anyone can be poor. Talking to a villager here today, they live in a Council House, both adults work (manual workers) to bring up three children all of school age. They need a car as they live in a rural village, 6 miles to nearest town, infrequent and expensive buses. It is also 3 miles to school, so its on foot or by car as there is no subsidised bus service for them. They own a Volvo S40 2.0 petrol, bought 3 years ago and it falls into the tax trap. They took a three year loan to buy it. They will sell it and downsize now.
They bought the car because of perceived safety, quality and slow depreciation. They feel penalized now - badly treated. Their fuel prices have rocketed as have other costs. They feel poor and they're decent hard working people who don't claim benefits.
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- it just goes in the pot marked "Waste on useless initiatives" subtitled "Consultants"
Spookily accurate, Phil - we must have the same mole in the Treasury.
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