Posted on 10/29/2006 5:23:01 PM PST by Risha
Secret green tax blitz planned for cars, air travel and consumer goods By SIMON WALTERS, Mail on Sunday
Secret plans for a multi-billion-pound package of stealth taxes on fuel, cars, air travel and consumer goods have been drawn up by the government to combat global warming.
The proposals, leaked to The Mail on Sunday, show that the Government is considering introducing a raft of hard-hitting 'eco-taxes' that will have a devastating effect on the cost of living.
Families with big cars could end up paying more than £1,000 a year extra in tax. And nearly every household in Britain will be hit in the pocket.
Most controversial of all, the documents reveal the Government is planning to grab billions of pounds of extra revenue from motorists - without telling them. It is considering introducing a special mechanism so that whenever oil prices go down, the Government would get the cash in extra fuel tax - not the motorist.
A leaked letter from Environment Secretary David Miliband to Chancellor Gordon Brown says the advantage of this is that the Government would gain billions of pounds 'without individual announcements on fuel-duty rises needing to be made'.
The Government was immediately accused by the Conservatives of trying to introduce more 'stealth taxes' and failing to be honest with voters about the consequences of dealing with climate change.
The leak comes 24 hours before Tony Blair launches a major report warning that floods and other natural disasters caused by global warming will spark an economic catastrophe worse than the 1929 Wall Street Crash. But the report, by economist Sir Nicholas Stern, does not reveal what the Government plans to do about it.
But a leaked letter written from Mr Miliband to Mr Brown on October 18 and obtained by The Mail on Sunday spells out the grim reality: wide-ranging tax rises that will have a dramatic impact on family incomes.
Mr Miliband calls for tough measures to combat 'car use and ownership' with a 'substantial increase' in road tax, which currently costs a maximum of £210 a year. Mr Miliband says road tax should copy the 'success' of company-car taxes which forced people to switch to smaller vehicles with annual levies of up to £5,000.
He also suggests a 'Treasury mechanism' allowing the Government to benefit from any fall in oil prices and reintroducing the 'fuel-duty escalator', which put up the duty on petrol by five per cent over inflation until Mr Brown ordered a freeze in 1999.
Mr Miliband calls for a new 'pay-per-mile pollution tax' on motorists. And he urges VAT on air travel to EU destinations and new taxes on inefficient washing machines and light bulbs.
He also backs fresh laws to let town halls impose a 'rubbish tax' on households by using 'spies' placed in dustbins to weigh non-recyclable refuse.
The letter says: 'Differential charging for waste at household level can have a significant role to play and local authorities should be given the powers to do so.'
Mr Miliband also called for landfill tax - paid by businesses and local councils that bury rubbish - to be increased from £21 a ton to £75. But one environmental expert said this could lead to more fly-tipping unless it is properly policed.
The letter to Mr Brown, marked 'Restricted', demands urgent and radical action in next month's public-spending review and next year's Budget.
Changing people's behaviour can be achieved only by 'market forces and price signals', it says, adding: 'Market-based instruments, including taxes, need to play a substantial role. As our understandings of climate change increases, it is clear more needs to be done.'
The Government must 'increase the pace of existing tax measures, broaden them into sectors where incentives to cut carbon emissions are weak and identify new instruments to drive progress in tackling greenhouse gas'.
An aide to Mr Miliband said: "We don't comment on leaked documents. These are ideas, not a package of measures." An ally of Mr Brown added: "The Chancellor does not approve of conducting Government business on the basis of leaks."
Tory environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said: "No one is more committed to tackling climate change than the Conservatives. But if the Government wants to deal with it successfully, it must do so in an upfront way instead of bringing in stealth taxes by the back door.
"As with everything this Government does, the devil is in the detail. If motorists and consumers think all the Government wants to do is to slap taxes on everything, they may respond negatively.
"Tony Blair's Government has sat on its hands for ten years. Tackling the enormous challenge of climate change would have been much easier if they hadn't left it so late."
Professor Julian Morris, environmental economist at Birmingham University and director of the International Policy Network, a free-market think-tank, called the new taxes "underhand" and accused the Government of "nannying".
Here we reveal the taxes proposed by Mr Miliband, Professor Morris's opinion of them - and, crucially, what they will cost taxpayers.
• How it will affect family budgets
A couple with two children and a big car could see their annual bills increase by about £1,300 a year if the new 'green' stealth taxes go ahead. Even people with average cars could be £750 a year worse off.
The Miliband memo gives few details on the level of the new taxes. But The Mail on Sunday has compiled a budget - using cautious estimates - showing how families could be hit, based on conversations with Government insiders:
Chelsea tractor tax: Road tax disc on Toyota Landcruiser trebled from £210 to £630 and doubled from £150 to £300 for Vauxhall Zafira.
Petrol-will-never-be-cheap tax: The new Treasury plan to raise fuel tax when oil prices drop could raise pump prices by 5p a litre (22p a gallon).
A family with a gas-guzzling car who drive 15,000 miles a year would face an extra £130 annual petrol bill. A return to automatic annual fuel duty rises at five per cent above inflation could add a further 5p per litre, doubling the additional cost to £260 for a 4x4, £130 for an average car.
Pay-as-you-drive tax: New tax to make motorists pay for all environmental damage including carbon emissions, congestion, noise and damage to the ozone layer could mean a 2p-per-mile tax on all journeys for big cars, costing £300 on 15,000 annual mileage and £150 (1p a mile) for average vehicles.
Cheap flights tax: VAT at 17.5 per cent on EU airline flights would increase the typical £500 bill for family of four to fly on holiday to the Mediterranean to £587.50. An extra £5 air passenger duty each would add extra £40. Total extra: £127.50.
Light bulb tax: New levy on energy-wasting appliances could mean £50 tax on cheap washing machines, dishwashers and tumble-dryers. New £1.50 tax on old-fashioned light bulbs to halve the price gap with energy-saving ones. Total extra cost £56. (Based on an average of one new appliance a year plus four light bulbs.)
Total extra cost: A family of four with a large car would therefore pay an extra £420 in road tax, £260 in fuel duty, £300 pollution tax, £127.50 aviation tax, and £56 on washing machines and light bulbs, making a grand total of £1,163.50.
Extra revenue for the Treasury: Up to £7billion.
self bump
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
I can just hear their economy's back breaking now. I just wonder how long it'll take our "enviro-idiots" to usher in the same here on this side of the pond.
coming to california next.
Gordon Brown is the founder, along with Al Gore, of the Global Marshall Plan. Of Terra taxes and a Tobin tax and George Soros's plan for the world.
http://www.globalmarshallplan.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Marshall_Plan
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
Cause I'm the tax man
Yea I'm the tax man
Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
Cause I'm the tax man
Yea I'm the tax man
If you drive a car-car I'll tax the street
If you try to sit-sit I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk I'll tax your feet
Tax man
Well I'm the tax man
Yea I'm the tax man
Don't ask me what I want it for
If you don't want to pay some more
Cause I'm the tax man
Yea I'm the tax man
Now my advice for those who die (tax man)
Declare the pennies on your eyes (tax man)
Cause I'm the tax man
Yea I'm the tax man
And you're working for no one but me
(Tax man)
Socialists hate cars. Cars represent individual freedom. They want you to travel in mass transit where you are easier to control and keep an eye on. These are the same manipulators who preach smart growth. They hide their intentions in unimaginable initiatives, things that busy people would never dream up. Before you know it, your tax dollars are funding another screwed up vision. The latest craze is traffic calming. It should really be labeled gridlock creation.
I disagree. It's also about controlling your behavior by penalizing you for not living your live the way that the LIBS want you to.
I agree with that to. They control your money they control you.
Quite possibly: but leaving aside the question of whether the current British government can be called 'socialist' in any meaningful sense of that term, this isn't much evident in its record. Despite its rhetoric to the contrary, Labour has been consistently (but usually tacitly) encouraging the growth of private rather than public transport ever since it came to power.
LOL!...government ministers and advisers have been all over the British media talking about the Stern report and its likely consequences ever since it began to be widely leaked a few weeks ago.
Of course this is just good old-fashioned protectionism and elitism disguised as environmentalism. Taxing the exotic items so much as to making the Third World goods unsellable in Britain, and mangoes, bananas, coconuts, lychees so expensive that it will be like deja vu from 25 years ago - only the really rich could afford them. The British middle class has to settle for apples and more berries I suppose...
To prove my point, this is what the new tax will mean for NZ exports:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10408289
Air freight taxes could hurt NZ
1.00pm Monday October 30, 2006
New taxes on air freight advocated by a British report on climate change could threaten one of New Zealand's main sources of income.
Air transportation of agricultural exports is one area highlighted as a possible target for new green taxes.
Lobbyists in Europe argue that by eating produce from countries such as New Zealand consumers are effectively using up oil because of the energy spent in transporting them.
...
>>Before you know it, your tax dollars are funding another screwed up vision. The latest craze is traffic calming.
I drove through some of that today. Little islands plopped into suburban throughfares. I treated them like a slalom.
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