Join the fight for fairness now

[trw99]

I believe the price of fuel will be a minor issue as we look ahead to the next ten to twenty years. Very much larger concerns for us all will centre around democracy and capitalism. Have they had their time?

Modern media technology - Twitter, Facebook etc - allowed the Arab spring uprising to happen. It would have been inconceivable 15 years ago; Greece's unrest in the very cradle of democracy may lead to a different style of politics and rule and closer to home there is an increasingly wider disconnect between politicians and the people. The fusion of communism and capitalism in China is interesting, though it has not yet matured it may point to a potential way forward for some countries.

I hasten to say that I have no axe to grind here, I am predictably and boringly right wing, but I do believe we have some fundamental issues to face about the way we make money and govern ourselves in the future; I shall watch with fascination as it unfolds. So back to my work now, fix a cup of coffee, pick up the telephone, organise a few meetings, write a couple of reports - all much the same as I have for the last twenty odd years!

Tim

[Elanintheforest]

Alex, I'm not arguing that it's fair, but looking at what's happening with taxation and fuel prices around Europe I'm seeing that we're doing much the same as other counties. In the big picture, better than some, worse than others. In the UK, we do have a lower than OECD average basic tax rate, and one of the lowest in the EU, which means that tax on petrol and diesel, booze, cigs and other stuff has to be higher to bring in the revenue to support the system that we have.

Looking at the comparison charts, some countries seem to charge a high income tax rate AND a high fuel duty rate.

It seems that we have seen the best of things for many generations, and the price of oil (as opposed to fossil fuels Simon!) is only going to go one way.

The impacts of transportation costs on the Scottish Islands has always been high, and now that fuel prices are a larger proportion of spend than ever before, I'm sure there will be significant pain there. The only realistic option that I can see is for transportation costs to be subsidised by the government, otherwise St Kilda won't be the only deserted island.

Alex Salmond has it in his powers to do something, and the Islands must figure in his vision of a fully independent Scotland. Ask his office what plans he has to support the Islands!

The cat at Donnington gets 26mpg Alex.....almost economical! The V12 E type I was using yesterday struggles to achieve 12 mpg when used enthusiastically....no point in having it any other way. Going out for a little spin in that car costs about ?25 an hour on fuel....a far better way of measuring it than mpg!! Yes, it does hurt me as well, but it's an option I choose for the fun I have with cars.

The information on tax came from here Simon, and you're right, there does seem to be some anomalies with some of the numbers:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/tax_t ... gle-worker

Unfortunately it doesn't have a date, and I do suspect some of those numbers. This breakdown, from the OECD, is probably more credible, which shows the breakdown of the tax wedge rather than just the total, and is dated at 2009 / 2010. However, it's not necessarily the super-detail that's of importance, but more the trend in tax revenue that I was illustrating. And as you correctly point out, this has nothing to do with affordability in any of the countries....I think that you'd need a month and some very good spreadsheet skills to develop an accurate picture on that basis!



And that chart is form here:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.co.uk/ ... wedge.html

Mark

[elanfan1]

The future of fuels is Gas - there is hundreds of years worth underground/undersea - just need the infrastructure to move it safely and vehicles etc to use it.

Oh and to prove that fracking doesn't cause earthquakes in Blackpool!

Still lots of oil to be discovered it will just get more and more expensive to move it - without an agreement with Argentina I reckon it will be very expensive to move oil from the discoveries around the Falklands

[cal44]

I really like reading what you guys in the U.K and in Europe have on your minds as it helps me look at the big picture.

Fairness................life ain't fair.
I would have named it "Join the fight against theft now", as that is what governments do....they take your money by force through taxes.

Man made global warming..........what load o' crap. What happened "Global Freezing"? Time magazine 1973/'74.....another lie, acid rain.....another lie, the world is running out of water......another lie. The crap just keeps flowing from the ones that want to control you and steal your money.

More taxes on gas?............so they can give it too free loaders with their gold front teeth and hands out for free cheese.

Our countries are not that much different...............lucky for me I live in the States where we have free speech and we call these bums what they really are...........thieves.

Mike

[ardee_selby]

Just one of the quotes from: http://www.racfoundation.org/media-cent ... or-thought

"The irony is that while ministers encourage us to buy greener, leaner cars, they are being forced to look at ways of clawing back the money motorists think they will be saving. This isn?t scaremongering. The Treasury has already announced a review of VED bands to ensure drivers make a ?fair contribution? to the public finances even as cars become more fuel efficient"


Gotcha!

Richard

[Steve G]

Your quote there Richard is the crux of this whole issue. How long are we going to be driving electric cars 'on the cheap'? I would say possibly 1 or 2 years, until they become a large minority, say 25% of the vehicles on the road. Then there will be no more free road tax for zero emissions vehicles and they will have to introduce 'electricity for transport' duty or some other concoction. As this will be very tricky to implement they will just add a duty to all electricity. But then people will be generating their own domestic electricity through PV etc. so they will have to invent some other green tax...

Oh, hang on Steve, they're way ahead of you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_re ... ed_Kingdom

In other words, battery tax.

As soon as EVs become the majority of vehicles on the road then it will probably work out cheaper to run an old dino-juice powered car.

They only care about duping their electorate into handing over more money. Nobody in Government, anywhere in the world, wants cheap (or dread the thought - free) transport for all. They'd have to lift the tobacco advertising ban and get everyone back on the fags to try and recoup some of the lost revenue, probably legalise crack while they're at it. Grrrr...

[/rant]

[ardee_selby]

Your quote there Richard is the crux of this whole issue....Grrrr...[/rant]

In the same vein...

I believe the introduction of water meters in some areas (Isle of Wight?) has had the desired effect i.e. much more "judicious" use. But lower consumption = lower bills = lower revenues...so unit costs has risen to recoup.

Richard

[Elanintheforest]

Come on guys?.revenue from water / fuel is small stuff. You have to remember our proud tradition as a revenue-grabbing nation.

Starting with theft on the high seas sanctioned by the Queen, privateering proved quite lucrative in the 16th and 17th centuries, and carried on well into the 19th century in one form or another. Initially, we were only plundering the Spanish ships full of silver and gold who in turn had pinched it from the Indians in South America though, so that was kind-of OK.

When the successful privateers settled down to do a spot of farming in the West Indies, we helped build the biggest slave trade economy since the Romans to give the poor West Indian farmers some cheap labour. A bit more dodgy.

When that started to go pear shaped, we settled down to the more gentle business of tea trading with the Chinese. It went well with the sugar from the West Indies. The trouble is, China didn?t really want to trade, so instead we sold opium to millions of Chinese who became increasingly keener to trade their tea. We even went to war with China to protect our right to trade as the biggest drug dealing cartel the world had ever seen. I bet China hasn?t forgotten this !!

Then there?s the gold, diamond and other precious metal / stone harvesting from South Africa and the Indian sub-continent.

So really, in another big-picture view through time, the British government has got a little more moral and a lot more modest in its revenue collection activities. It has no choice but to tax its citizens now, as the rest of the world became a little fed up with our revenue generation ideas overseas. We have to support and applaud their relatively recently found morality.

Come to think of it, the Bostonians got grumpy with the Brits over taxes and tea as well! Still, that was just the loss of a penal colony, and another one turned up pretty soon afterwards.

The Vikings have got a lot to answer for?.

Mark

[jono]

Bring back the window tax!

[ardee_selby]

We have to support and applaud their relatively recently found morality. Mark

Morality begins at home...like duck houses and moats

Richard

[ardee_selby]

Bring back the window tax!

Leave it out..Coupes have had a hard enough time as it is!

Richard

[Spyder fan]

Your quote there Richard is the crux of this whole issue. How long are we going to be driving electric cars 'on the cheap'? I would say possibly 1 or 2 years, until they become a large minority, say 25% of the vehicles on the road. Then there will be no more free road tax for zero emissions vehicles and they will have to introduce 'electricity for transport' duty or some other concoction. As this will be very tricky to implement they will just add a duty to all electricity. But then people will be generating their own domestic electricity through PV etc. so they will have to invent some other green tax...

Oh, hang on Steve, they're way ahead of you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_re ... ed_Kingdom

In other words, battery tax.

As soon as EVs become the majority of vehicles on the road then it will probably work out cheaper to run an old dino-juice powered car.

With some almost useable but not necessarily affordable electric and hybrid electric vehicles now coming into the market we can all look forward to road pricing in the future. HMRC will need to replace the fuel taxes when we start using alternatives.

Using the most sensible hybrid vehicle on the market as an example IMHO, here's the maths

Charging a Vauxhall Ampera from your domestic mains supply will cost you around ?1, it's useable range on battery before it needs it's top up generator petrol engine to fire up is around 40 miles according to the manufacturer so think 30 - 35 in the real world. Vauxhall reckon that 90% of all journeys are less than the battery range, therefore your yearly 10,000 average miles are made up of 9000 miles @ 2.85p per mile (electric charge) cost and 1000 miles @ 17.50p (petrol) so that's ?431.50 per year. Put this against the ?1750 it costs to fuel a petrol car averaging 35mpg for 10,000 miles and it starts looking a very attractive proposition from the fuel cost point of view, but the high cost of buying an Ampera versus a standard petrol car means you have to go a long way to actually make any financial saving. The difference in fuel cost between petrol and hybrid or electric is mostly fuel duty and VAT, so HMRC will find a way of clawing that back when enough of us switch over when the vehicles themselves become more affordable.

In my calculation above I have assumed that the Ampera will average 35mpg when it's running from it's petrol engine generator, Vauxhall claim it will do 311 miles from it's 30 litre petrol tank on top of it's 40 mile battery range, Vauxhalls claim is therefore 47.5mpg average on petrol, but with the wonders of mathematics they claim 175MPG by combining the percentage of use of battery versus petrol.

Auto Express review here http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/carreviews/firstdrives/253582/vauxhall_ampera.html

[trw99]

You're a bright spark, Thomas, there's no denying ...

Tim

[alexblack13]

Eeemmmm Eerrr .. Forget I said anything!! Back to spanners and engines and hubs with pullers and things with sparks and Ohms n things like that.....

And Mark.. Thon big cat was not doing 26mph that night! I would hazard a guess at about 10.... LOL... Sounded awesome though.
I love the Boxster (3.4 ltr) at full chat too. Makes my hair stand on end.. Makes carol's hair stand on end too.

Heh!!

Are you going to Silverstone?

[alexblack13]

By the way.... It's bloody freezing up here. Can't get any of the toys out to play...


Al'....