Think petrol tax is high right now?

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Osem

You're not suggesting we've been misled are you?...

Our illustrious leaders mislead us? Never!

I'm surprised they have the time to find new and inventive ways to disappoint the public in between screwing every last penny out the taxpayer whilst asking all of us to take our share of the coming pain.

[Hom3r]

Well with ant & dec running the country "", there was talk on the TV that there will be a rise in VAT taking it from 17.5% to 20%, to pay off the deficiet.

But they were saying something about it NOT going on food so I guess among the target will be fuel.

So if this does happen, all those who voted for the current govenment CANNOT complain.

Originally Posted by Hom3r

Well with ant & dec running the country "", there was talk on the TV that there will be a rise in VAT taking it from 17.5% to 20%, to pay off the deficiet.

But they were saying something about it NOT going on food so I guess among the target will be fuel.

So if this does happen, all those who voted for the current govenment CANNOT complain.

Well, at least Mr Bean isn't running the country anymore..... (nice to see a happy Mirror reader).

If VAT does go up, I won't complain - we need to balance the books somehow to pay for the NHS, Education, Defence, etc etc - the money fairy doesn't really exist.

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Well, at least Mr Bean isn't running the country anymore..... (nice to see a happy Mirror reader).

If VAT does go up, I won't complain - we need to balance the books somehow to pay for the NHS, Education, Defence, etc etc - the money fairy doesn't really exist.

Well I will 'cos my wages aren't going up.

[Graham M]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

So if this does happen, all those who voted for the current govenment CANNOT complain.

And I WILL NOT be complaining; the debt needs to be paid somehow, if the supposed raises on the bottom tax allowance goes up to 10k it'll make most people better off anyhow

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

Well with ant & dec running the country "", there was talk on the TV that there will be a rise in VAT taking it from 17.5% to 20%, to pay off the deficiet.

But they were saying something about it NOT going on food so I guess among the target will be fuel.

So if this does happen, all those who voted for the current govenment CANNOT complain.

Aw bless.
Food is VAT free (oh how I love running on veg oil).
An increase of the 17.5% VAT rate would not just affect fuel.
Of course this is all guess work by a few non-governmental economists.
Doesn't mean it will happen, doesn't mean it won't.

If it does, I'll be complaining about the mess Labour left us in, not the steps that need to be taken to get us out of it.

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Well, at least Mr Bean isn't running the country anymore..... (nice to see a happy Mirror reader).

If VAT does go up, I won't complain - we need to balance the books somehow to pay for the NHS, Education, Defence, etc etc - the money fairy doesn't really exist.

So you don't obviously drive.

I nearly cried when I paid my diesl bill, £60,the most I have ever spent.

FYI I don't buy newspapers, even if I did the Mirror would be one of them.

[haydnwalker]

Me and a mate at work figured out, that if we half the amount of troops in Afghanistan (thereby saving lives...) and dropped public spending by 20%/year for 5 years they could just about pay off the deficit.

Afterall... WTF are we doing in Afghanistan anyway... not our war really. We were just bullied into going by the americans. how much does one round cost to fire from an SA80? Or an RPG from a launcher? Or even...how much does it cost to fly Close Air Support in a Tornado/Typhoon for 2 hours? ALOT I'm guessing, money that can be saved imho.

Increasing various taxes and costs just puts businesses out of work, thereby decreasing the amount of people paying tax and increasing the amount of people taking benefits

---------- Post added at 18:05 ---------- Previous post was at 18:03 ----------

Originally Posted by Hom3r

So you don't obviously drive.

I nearly cried when I paid my diesl bill, £60,the most I have ever spent.

You get off lightly Hom3r... My Audi costs me about £80 to fill up...its getting rediculous. And I'm spending £40/week on fuel as I have to use my car at work. I'm glad I get a mileage allowance really because I'd be skint if I didn't

[chris9991]

There was talk before the election, that the Tories wanted to have petrol duty be a fixed amount which varied as the untaxed price of petrol fluctuated (there was an article in Auto Express) so that the price on the forecourt would be smoothed. The article did say there was no detailed plans available and it could be expensive to run in public BUT they could reduce petrol duty to offset this

[TheNorm]

Originally Posted by haydnwalker

Me and a mate at work figured out,...

Won't those measures increase unemployment?

[Taf]

As we pay excise duty on the petrol then VAT on the cost PLUS the excise duty, a simple way would be to just dump the VAT and have the excise duty only (at a higher rate at first of course to prevent loss of tax).

But I don't suppose our EU friends would like that....

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by haydnwalker

Me and a mate at work figured out, that if we half the amount of troops in Afghanistan (thereby saving lives...) and dropped public spending by 20%/year for 5 years they could just about pay off the deficit.

Afterall... WTF are we doing in Afghanistan anyway... not our war really. We were just bullied into going by the americans. how much does one round cost to fire from an SA80? Or an RPG from a launcher? Or even...how much does it cost to fly Close Air Support in a Tornado/Typhoon for 2 hours? ALOT I'm guessing, money that can be saved imho.

Increasing various taxes and costs just puts businesses out of work, thereby decreasing the amount of people paying tax and increasing the amount of people taking benefits

---------- Post added at 18:05 ---------- Previous post was at 18:03 ----------



You get off lightly Hom3r... My Audi costs me about £80 to fill up...its getting rediculous. And I'm spending £40/week on fuel as I have to use my car at work. I'm glad I get a mileage allowance really because I'd be skint if I didn't

Well Afganistan is off topic, but if we weren't there they would be hear, proberly doing more 7/7.

Well I never have had the benefit of mileage allowance, other than the occational drive when the pool car was out.

Originally Posted by Taf

As we pay excise duty on the petrol then VAT on the cost PLUS the excise duty, a simple way would be to just dump the VAT and have the excise duty only (at a higher rate at first of course to prevent loss of tax).

But I don't suppose our EU friends would like that....

would there be an advantage to tagging the exise duty onto the road fund license ?
i know this has been mooted a few times in the past by various governments but it didn't really get of the ground

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

Well with ant & dec running the country "", there was talk on the TV that there will be a rise in VAT taking it from 17.5% to 20%, to pay off the deficiet.

But they were saying something about it NOT going on food so I guess among the target will be fuel.

So if this does happen, all those who voted for the current govenment CANNOT complain.

Second post you've made with that exact last paragraph in.

From what I can see people who voted the other way to you aren't complaining. Why? Because we understand, unlike most Labour supporters, that there isn't an endless pot of money to throw at public services and welfare and buy votes. We accept that the bills have to be paid and I'm sorry to inform you that we don't blame the new administration for it - we blame the previous administration that chalked up the deficit that needs paying.

The simple fact is that the economic woes were bad, however even without that Labour were happily chalking up ever increasing deficits that were not sustainable in the long term.

It's what they do, spend and spend and tax and tax and borrow and borrow if they don't feel it politically convenient to tax enough to pay for the spending. They were handed a prosperous economy in surplus and urinated that away throwing money at inefficiently run services, welfare and bribing and expanding their base.

We're not in the state Greece were, but the fact remains either we deal with the deficit as a country or the deficit deals with us by causing us to lose our AAA credit rating and our interest bill go up further increasing the amount of money being spent unproductively and on overheads instead of servicing us the people.

This won't be pleasant, but sadly those who are pragmatic enough to grasp it will accept the need. I appreciate this may well not include many who think that they can live off the state, that it should look after them and all their needs and don't grasp that the money for it has to come from somewhere and their relatively small or non-existent tax bill really doesn't come close to covering it.

Nice try

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

If it does, I'll be complaining about the mess Labour left us in, not the steps that need to be taken to get us out of it.

Dam right. Its going to take a long time to clear up the mess left by them