UK Travel Tax

[Sharkith]

Not only are they going to add lots of tax to flights the current plans are to Tax your car for every mile it travels (£1.34 per MILE). As though you don't already work to a similar scheme by paying tax when you pay for fuel. This is another way to milk tax out of people and get direct control of road consumption.

This is a UK Government Petition if your a bit worried about these plans please sign it:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

I don't normally go in for many of these things but this is one that caught my eye as being potentially a major issue that is going to affect everyone.

Sharkith

 

[Marc]

It aint gonna be long before the government tax us for breathing.

 

[Mojo]

My understadning was that they were going to scrap fuel duty and road tax and have this instead.

I think there is a petition on the govs website which his 500k sigs. (oh i see u linked the petition)

 

[Bracken]

What really pisses me off about this is that they say we need this to reduce carbon emissions to halt global warning. And yet whatever we do in this country means f*ck all aslong as USA, China, Russia and India continue as they are going - and those countries are doing absolutely diddly to reduce their emissions. So we are being royally shafted for absolutely nothing. The argument we then get is that just because no one else is doing anything that shouldn't stop us doing our "bit". Well our "bit" (which in this case is adding a great lump to our tax bill) will not have any significant impact on the global environmental problems - and it's not as though the money raised will be used on enviromental projects. It will just be wasted on all the other crap this government wastes money on.

 

[Mojo]

What really pisses me off about this is that they say we need this to reduce carbon emissions to halt global warning. And yet whatever we do in this country means f*ck all aslong as USA, China, Russia and India continue as they are going - and those countries are doing absolutely diddly to reduce their emissions. So we are being royally shafted for absolutely nothing. The argument we then get is that just because no one else is doing anything that shouldn't stop us doing our "bit". Well our "bit" (which in this case is adding a great lump to our tax bill) will not have any significant impact on the global environmental problems - and it's not as though the money raised will be used on enviromental projects. It will just be wasted on all the other crap this government wastes money on.

If we practice, we can preach.

 

[Sparx]

What really pisses me off about this is that they say we need this to reduce carbon emissions to halt global warning. And yet whatever we do in this country means f*ck all aslong as USA, China, Russia and India continue as they are going - and those countries are doing absolutely diddly to reduce their emissions. So we are being royally shafted for absolutely nothing. The argument we then get is that just because no one else is doing anything that shouldn't stop us doing our "bit". Well our "bit" (which in this case is adding a great lump to our tax bill) will not have any significant impact on the global environmental problems - and it's not as though the money raised will be used on enviromental projects. It will just be wasted on all the other crap this government wastes money on.

i know what your saying, but its a bad attitude. It like saying whats the point no-one else does it so fuck it.

If one does it then more can be persuaded

 

[Corran]

This kind of idea is utter stupidity and of course the UK government would be coming up with it.

I mean, you leave 20miles from work, a small village with no running public service that goes towards your work. This gives you no choice but to drive to work.

So 20miles @ £1.34 = £26.80
So a days travelling to work costs £53.60 on top of the current costs you have.

So in a week you have £268 additional costs and just for ease we say you work all 52 weeks.

52* £268 = £13936

Now, considering in my area that is basically a yearly salary, why are you actually working? You spend all your earnings merly on this taxation and therefore you can not afford to live. This is the most ill thought out idea going and if it gets passed then i can see alot of trouble ahead.

 

[Sharkith]

My understadning was that they were going to scrap fuel duty and road tax and have this instead.

I think there is a petition on the govs website which his 500k sigs. (oh i see u linked the petition)

aye Mojo they are but they brought this idea up as a 'pay as you go' thing. The thing is we already pay as we go since we pay road tax and fuel duty.

So why change the current system unless you don't have enough control and are possibly not making enough money out of it? By changing it make no mistake they will screw people royally in the future. Look what happened with airport duty? It is set to hit £150 per flight from the UK in the next six months.

Once they get more control they will screw people because they can.

Bracken's pont holds - why should we hand control over to a government system that simply cannot be trusted 5 years down the line to not be rising the new control they have well above inflation. The claims that this is in the interests of greenhouse emissions is spurious.

The vast majority of greenhouse emissions in the UK occur from landfill sites largely filled by supermarket waste. Is there any evidence they are tackling the biggest source of emissions?

 

[Gamah]

Poll tax riots V2!

 

[Sharkith]

This kind of idea is utter stupidity and of course the UK government would be coming up with it.

I mean, you leave 20miles from work, a small village with no running public service that goes towards your work. This gives you no choice but to drive to work.

So 20miles @ £1.34 = £26.80
So a days travelling to work costs £53.60 on top of the current costs you have.

So in a week you have £268 additional costs and just for ease we say you work all 52 weeks.

52* £268 = £13936

Now, considering in my area that is basically a yearly salary, why are you actually working? You spend all your earnings merly on this taxation and therefore you can not afford to live. This is the most ill thought out idea going and if it gets passed then i can see alot of trouble ahead.

I should clarify Corran that the figure quoted is for major roads like the M1. Small roads would be a lot less.

However it would cost my family around £230 to drive to London and home again. It costs us £43 currently to do this. So basically they are proposing around a 500% increase in the costs of travelling to London for us.

Now lets move forward a bit more. What they are doing is effectively nationalising the road system by placing it under complete surveillance. Once the system is in place and paid for it does not take a genius to realise that they could then 'sell off' our roads to private companies in the same way that they did to the railways.

We know how successful that was.

I simply do not believe that the motive for this is to reduce greenhouse emissions. It is about money pure and simple and they are lying to us.

Sign the petition and let people know about it. If it is unpopular they will wee themselves and back off.

 

[Corran]

I should clarify Corran that the figure quoted is for major roads like the M1. Small roads would be a lot less.

However it would cost my family around £230 to drive to London and home again. It costs us £43 currently to do this. So basically they are proposing around a 500% increase in the costs of travelling to London for us.

Now lets move forward a bit more. What they are doing is effectively nationalising the road system by placing it under complete surveillance. Once the system is in place and paid for it does not take a genius to realise that they could then 'sell off' our roads to private companies in the same way that they did to the railways.

We know how successful that was.

I simply do not believe that the motive for this is to reduce greenhouse emissions. It is about money pure and simple and they are lying to us.

Sign the petition and let people know about it. If it is unpopular they will wee themselves and back off.

Was generalising there but i know what you mean. Thing is say the cost for roads you use is half that which used, still £7000 in taxation. Cant see my work giving me a £7000 net pay rise. Would be a nice arguement as I work for a Government department

 

[tris-]

Was generalising there but i know what you mean. Thing is say the cost for roads you use is half that which used, still £7000 in taxation. Cant see my work giving me a £7000 net pay rise. Would be a nice arguement as I work for a Government department

if its going to cost me that much to goto work when i finished uni, i might just stay at uni forever getting student loan after student loan, year in year out.

 

[Sharkith]

Was generalising there but i know what you mean. Thing is say the cost for roads you use is half that which used, still £7000 in taxation. Cant see my work giving me a £7000 net pay rise. Would be a nice arguement as I work for a Government department

I get your point. What I am guessing is that they are using the Green angle to get a change in law to allow in principle the surveillance of all cars in the UK. It is effective nationalisation of the roads only in a far more effective way than ever conceived of before. It does open up the possibility of private comapines running our roads 15 years from now.

We know just how much one of those fucked up the rail tracks and look it certainly delivered lower ticket costs - like fuck.

 

[Nate]

To police this new tax, they are going to have to put trackers in all cars right? You thought it was bad with all the CCTV, welcome to big brother ladys and gents..they will know where you are, all the time.

 

[cHodAX]

It aint gonna be long before the government tax us for breathing.

They already do, they just call it VAT

 

[Garok]

WTB job in Goverment think tank. Just think how much the people get paid too come up with these idea's.

 

[Bracken]

i know what your saying, but its a bad attitude. It like saying whats the point no-one else does it so fuck it.

If one does it then more can be persuaded

I really wish it worked that way, that by doing what is "right" we will pursuade others to follow. But we're talking about the US, Russia and China - when was the last time they were shamed into changing their behaviour by international pressure? I might have a "bad" attitude but it's also a realistic one.

 

[Gamah]

China is a developing country, you can't expect it to want to stiffle growth by imposing heavy restrictions.

 

[- English -]

id probably run the 4 mile trip to work if i would cost me per mile... petrol is enough imo

 

[tris-]

btw, everyone complaining here have you factored in how much you will save from paying no tax on petrol and no road tax?

according to the economist at uni, petrol is about 30p a litre before tax is added.

 

[Corran]

btw, everyone complaining here have you factored in how much you will save from paying no tax on petrol and no road tax?

according to the economist at uni, petrol is about 30p a litre before tax is added.

Not bothered factoring that in, simple reason is i know it will be no where near the cost of this tax. If i use my car only for work, it costs me in the region of £23 a week.

So that is £1196 a year, throw on road tax and in the region of £1350.

£7000-£1350 = £5650 increase. This is over a 400% increase. So clearly this is just another way to increase the taxation way above any idea of a reasonable amount. And I can state with near certainty that this money will not only be used on that which is the stated reason (environment). Probably be used to pay for even more Butlers for Blair, maybe they will get even more then the £50'000 a year salary currently be receiving.

 

[Sharkith]

btw, everyone complaining here have you factored in how much you will save from paying no tax on petrol and no road tax?

according to the economist at uni, petrol is about 30p a litre before tax is added.

We can do it now if you like I am betting you and your economist will be wrong.

It currently costs me £44 a round trip to London. It is exactly 176 miles one way which is 352 miles a round trip. Thats 12.5 pence a mile.

The government will charge me 124pence per mile.

Thats 10.33 times more than I am currently paying. How on earth can you say I am saving anything?

Not only that if you and your economic colleagues had any ounce of wit you would have to put a price on the freedom of movement that we more or less currently have without being under surveillance.

So Tris what price is freedom?

 

[tris-]

no idea. i was just asking you guys a question with the added info of how much petrol would be without tax

 

[Corran]

We can do it now if you like I am betting you and your economist will be wrong.

It currently costs me £44 a round trip to London. It is exactly 176 miles one way which is 352 miles a round trip. Thats 12.5 pence a mile.

The government will charge me 124pence per mile.

Thats 10.33 times more than I am currently paying. How on earth can you say I am saving anything?

Not only that if you and your economic colleagues had any ounce of wit you would have to put a price on the freedom of movement that we more or less currently have without being under surveillance.

So Tris what price is freedom?

Think you are a bit harsh on Tris there, fair enough question he asked i suppose and he didnt actually comment on anything, just queried if we took it into account.

As you stating in a way, a major question on top of "how will people afford this?" is, "Who will have access to this information?"

The reason this a big issue is that i currently can get ahold of alot of private information and dont require court order (Police need court order for a lot the stuff i can get). So i know the extremes that things can be taken too. But even without powers, if the police approached this organisation/department that runs the tracking of vehicles and requests information on where a vehicle has been and where it currently is using Data Protection Act exemption 29(3) "Prevention and detection of crime", will this information be handed over? And how much information will be provided. Certain people breach data protection constantly so will this be any different I wonder.

Also, how will it be tracked? Will they take all DVLA information and come fit a device on every car that is registered? If so i can see a huge increase in unlicenced vehicles on the road. That or people will figure out how to disconnect the device and then just activate it for a 5mile run a week etc. It will be dodged no matter what so be interesting to see what they fully plan, but the money they spend on implementing this would be much better spent else where (*cough* health service!!!"

 

[Sharkith]

Think you are a bit harsh on Tris there, fair enough question he asked i suppose and he didnt actually comment on anything, just queried if we took it into account.

As you stating in a way, a major question on top of "how will people afford this?" is, "Who will have access to this information?"

The reason this a big issue is that i currently can get ahold of alot of private information and dont require court order (Police need court order for a lot the stuff i can get). So i know the extremes that things can be taken too. But even without powers, if the police approached this organisation/department that runs the tracking of vehicles and requests information on where a vehicle has been and where it currently is using Data Protection Act exemption 29(3) "Prevention and detection of crime", will this information be handed over? And how much information will be provided. Certain people breach data protection constantly so will this be any different I wonder.

Also, how will it be tracked? Will they take all DVLA information and come fit a device on every car that is registered? If so i can see a huge increase in unlicenced vehicles on the road. That or people will figure out how to disconnect the device and then just activate it for a 5mile run a week etc. It will be dodged no matter what so be interesting to see what they fully plan, but the money they spend on implementing this would be much better spent else where (*cough* health service!!!"

yeah sorry - I am posting like I am in the RvR section

I agree Corran there are big issues one of the plans was to fit a device into cars to enable tracking. I am betting if they give everyone statellite nav as part of the deal that the UK public will go for it ;p