Green taxes are a big con
Dear Justine Greening,
Thank you for pursuing the government over their ‘green taxes’ sham. I am always happy to see the government taking a serious interest in environmental issues, but slapping massive tax hikes on motorists is designed to raise £2.5 billion of revenue for the empty Treasury coffers instead of trying to help reduce pollution.
This cleverly disguised policy was always a con and you are right to suggest that it will have “virtually no impact on the environment”. The new showroom tax being introduced in 2010 merely adds insult to injury as any justification on environmental grounds has already been lost through increasing vehicle excise duty for precisely that reason. However, the Conservatives are going to have to think about this carefully because green taxes are deceitful and ineffective. Road pricing is without doubt the fairest and most effective way of combatting congestion across the country as people would be taxed on the basis of how much they use their car as opposed to whether they own a car. In return, vehicle excise duty should be scrapped and the revenue raised from road pricing should be reinvested in improving our transport infrastructure. Reducing pollution is best left to an emission trading scheme for each individual, similar to the one already used for businesses, so people pay for however much pollution they use or receive money for polluting less than others.
I doubt that you or any other Conservative MP has the will and the desire to make these kind of changes, but like I said in the ‘Why I write these letters’ section of my blog, it’s better to be right and unpopular than wrong and popular.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
>>In return, vehicle excise duty should be scrapped and the revenue raised from road pricing should be reinvested in improving our transport infrastructure.<<
HaHaHaHaHa!
As if!
Brown needs the cash, and hates taxpayers. It will get worse before it gets worse.
Brown won’t do it, but will the Conservatives have the guts to introduce it?
(I think it’s best if I leave that as a rhetorical question, as I fear that I may already know the answer)
The best method of taxing, green or otherwise is already in use.
It’s the tax we pay when we fill the tank!
WTF do we need another army of civil servant cunts to administer another revenue heist?
The broon can look green?
That’s a con too.
Global temperatures have declined for the last 6 years, with ‘07 being the biggest decline. Predicted sunspots have not happened, plus global dimming from all the crap put out by the BRIC economies results in less sunlight reaching the surface.
Plus CO2 levels have NO correlation to temperatures at ANY time during the last few million years.
All the carbon trading, the carbon credits, is all bollox, – - another way of extracting treasure, and hamstringing industry for the benefit of the global conspirators.
Cut the pollution, YES, but be honest about taxing POLLUTERS, forget CO2 emissions as a basis for taxation.
Wrong taxation principles will screw economies and the wellbeing of humanity, just look at corn for ethanol, (or is it deathanol? ), with 33% of global maize in 2009 targeted for ethanol production, subsidised by the US taxpayer, and deaths in 3rd World countries. Now there’s an example of taxation based on mindless economics and subsidy, enriching the few, killing the many, impoverishing millions, and for what?
Entire global warming is a scam.
Bend over al gore, and lube up. You self serving, egotistical greedy bastard. All for a Nobel, – Arafat got one of them, but I bet your policies end up killing hundreds of millions more than he did.
The problem is that taxing at the tank does not account for congestion (which creates more pollution), which is why road charging is more appropriate.
Road pricing can also charge on the basis of total pollutants, if my understanding is correct, as the technology can measure everything that comes out of the exhaust pipe and charge accordingly.
Where’s my previous post gone?
Climate Change is not a con or a scam. Global temperatures and weather systems are changing at a rate never seen before. Even the head of the World Bank has come out and said that the economic calculations for the cost of climate change were wildly underestimated. In the scientific community there is no doubt that something is happening and faster than ever before and we need reduce emissions now before it is too late.
Sadly the unknown direction of climate change that has fascinated scientists for decades has now been translated into apathy and ignorance amongst the non-scientists!
Anyway I digress. Taxation is necessary as people’s decisions are normally based on money and so to tax people whose activities create high emissions is plausible but it is where that money ends up.that is the issue. It should be spent on environmental conservation, protection and research. Not go into the pockets of the mighty MPs to give away to their children!
The Man – you should have checked the ‘Rules of this blog’, no swearing is allowed!
Candid – taxing activites that create emissions might sound nice, but demand for driving is inelastic as many people have to use cars and price rises will not change that – which is why it raises so much extra revenue for the government WITHOUT HELPING THE ENVIRONMENT AT ALL. Unless policies are revenue neutral and actually reduce emissions, I’m not willing to listen.