fuel duty heros

Rolandtheroadie

goldspanners wrote: »

im sure all the truckers would be arrested under terrorism laws these days.

As would any of us that tried to.
Saw an article the other day about the TAX MAN using terrorism laws to investigate people. How many of them would have been genuine terrorist suspects?

Obukit

To be honest I think fuel tax is a pretty fair one - basically, a tax on vanity. People who want to drive around in Range Rovers have to pay almost £100 to fill up. Meanwhile, anyone with any sense drives round in a cheap car or scooter returning five times the mpg .

Lets face it, if they didn't tax fuel they'd have to recover the £23.3billion from somewhere else - that's almost £500 for each adult.

Lum

Obukit wrote: »

To be honest I think fuel tax is a pretty fair one - basically, a tax on vanity. People who want to drive around in Range Rovers have to pay almost £100 to fill up. Meanwhile, anyone with any sense drives round in a cheap car or scooter returning five times the mpg .

This is only true if you are one of the few people fortunate enough to live close to their place of work.

thescouselander

Obukit wrote: »

To be honest I think fuel tax is a pretty fair one - basically, a tax on vanity. People who want to drive around in Range Rovers have to pay almost £100 to fill up. Meanwhile, anyone with any sense drives round in a cheap car or scooter returning five times the mpg .

Lets face it, if they didn't tax fuel they'd have to recover the £23.3billion from somewhere else - that's almost £500 for each adult.

The only problem with your calculation is that most items in the shops arrive by road which means high fuel prices add to the cost of things we buy every day regardless of what car you drive (or even if you don't drive at all).

MX5huggy

There's no fortune to living close to work you get a job then move to be within a sensible distance I commute 2.5 miles the wife 1.5 miles.

Lum

yes then you get made redundant and have to find work elsewhere.

We moved to Wales to be close to my GFs job after she was made redundant, then she got made redundant again, went contracting for a bit which meant commuting to Newbury every day, then she was able to find work in Bath.

Of course, I have a job in Wales now, so we can't exactly move to Bath as it'd be a lot more expensive and the fuel bill would be the same, only I'd be the one burning up the fuel commuting.

Must be great for you, having a secure job in this recession.

pitkin2020

MX5huggy wrote: »

There's no fortune to living close to work you get a job then move to be within a sensible distance I commute 2.5 miles the wife 1.5 miles.

Thats not always feasible. House / rental prices may be beyond your means living in an area that is closer to work, or you may simply not want to live in the area close to work for what ever reason.

whatmichaelsays

flyingscotno1 wrote: »

The problem is you cut fuel duty you have 2 options- cuts in public services (unpopular but some savings could be made in councils and benefits, but that is already happening) or more likely it gets lumped on elsewhere. They still have to get the same money in anyway.

DING DING DING DING DING! We have a winner.

I haven't seen a single one of these "fuel duty crusaders" actually address the issue of how £23.3bn could be recouped from elsewhere. Until one of them actually addresses that issue (and not one of them will), then there argument has absolutely zero credibility. The best that they can usually come up with "Oh, take it out of MPs expenses!" OK, well, that's about £14m saved, what about the other £23.286bn?

Personally, I think that the tax structures in the UK are best left to people who are slightly more qualified than a few disgruntled truckers.

iolanthe07

aviation travel being the largest contributor of global warming

Aviation contributes around 2% of man made CO2 and is nowhere near the largest contributor to global warming.

Lum

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

DING DING DING DING DING! We have a winner.

I haven't seen a single one of these "fuel duty crusaders" actually address the issue of how £23.3bn could be recouped from elsewhere. Until one of them actually addresses that issue (and not one of them will), then there argument has absolutely zero credibility. The best that they can usually come up with "Oh, take it out of MPs expenses!" OK, well, that's about £14m saved, what about the other £23.286bn?

Personally, I think that the tax structures in the UK are best left to people who are slightly more qualified than a few disgruntled truckers.

Well to be honest, services that everyone uses should be paid for by everyone, which would mean a rise in income tax. I don't really see why certain groups should be treated as cash cows to subsidise the rest of the country.

Bear in mind that 75% of the cost of fuel is tax, that means that fuel is taxed at 300% of it's base value, most other things are taxed at around 20%.

Plus there is the fact that pretty much everything you have bought in the last month got to you by truck at some point in it's journey, whether it's a pint of milk (arrived by truck at your supermarket) or a new TV ordered online (couriered by several trucks to arrive at your door) the cost of fuel affects the prices of everything and has been one of the main drivers of the current rate of inflation (the current official figure is kept artificially low by falling prices of non-essential items, such as cheap TVs from China. The rate of inflation on basic products like food is more like 8%)