Light dues study out

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FinesseChris

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The government commissioned a consultant to look at the economic effect of light dues. Their report is out. It is NOT official policy, but does include the following:
"Extending the scope of the scheme to include pleasure craft at a level of £100 per vessel per annum could (assuming collection costs are sufficiently low) generate some additional funds for the GLF, thereby reducing the amount paid by commercial shipping and without significant economic impacts on the marine leisure industry."

They suggest a minimum LOA of 8m, this being the kind of boat likely to make use of navigation aids.

This was the consultants' brief:
"MDS Transmodal, in association with DTZ Pieda Consulting, were commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) in September 2003 to carry out a study of the economic effect of light dues in the United Kingdom.

"The aim of the study was to provide an independent and objective analysis of the economic impacts of light dues at two levels:

* Direct impacts on shipping lines, ports and owners of fishing vessels and pleasure craft;
* Wider economic impacts on the regional and national economy in terms of value added, employment and environmental impacts."

Full report plus exec summary on the dept of Transport website at http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/grou...ents/page/dft_shipping_028394-01.hcsp#P16_369

Chris

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Worst fears realised.

There cannot possibly be any justification for such a high level of charging for a service that is 95% designed for deep draft vessels, and, as the Solent as shown, for yachts could mostly be adequately served by sponsorship.

But of course any less "wouldn't be worth the cost of collecting".

Money grabbing bastards. /forums/images/icons/mad.gif
 
Nasty suspicious mind

Trinity House, which is supposed to be independent from Govt and a way for retired admirals to supplement their wholly adequate pensions, puts out its "Vision" document which suggests charging leisure sailors a fee to help finance the cost of buoyage and decent claret.

The Dept of Transport, which has nothing to do with Trinity Ho, several months before the Vision document is published, commissions a survey into the viability of charging leisure sailors for the use of navaids (which is not DfT business). The survey results are published v. shortly after the Vision so-called consultation so-called process has finished.

If there was to have been a survey, then presumably Trinty Ho should have commissioned and paid for it, which would have dented the wine-buying fund.

Rearrange the words 'bastards' and 'conniving' to make a well known phrase or saying.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Twister_Ken on 26/04/2004 12:53 (server time).</FONT></P>
 
A consultant borrows your watch to tell you the time...

What else would he report when he knew fine well what was expected of him?

" Sorry Sirs but I don't think you should ask yotties for any money at all ..."

"Foutaise" as the French would say which roughly translates to a four letter word beginning with F.

John

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Collecting the dosh.

Trinity House has had something of a run-in with harbour authorities, resulting in the latter now being responsible for local buoyage and navigation aids - the ones we most use. Probably they realise that harbour authorities (which already charge for their own buoys) would therefore oppose the obvious suggestion of a levy on harbour/marina dues.

A simple windscreen sticker system such as used by Ofcomm for VHF radio? That cannot be policed and is widely flouted. So, it has to be a taxation linked to registration - ergo, compulsory registration follows.

As in the US, all those who could most afford to pay will immediately re-register in the Caymans.
 
My best offer

Would be to throw a few pence at any Trinity House navigation aid I get close enough to use, in the manner of the USA road tolls. I cannot remember the last time this occurred, I think it was a near miss with EC1 buoy in 1988, but then that wouldn't count since if they hadn't left the damn thing there it wouldn't need a light and I would not have nearly hit it.



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hmmm .. they've a bit of a problem ... the french, germans and dutch fund light dues from general taxation ....

the aim seems to be to 'flatten' the tax effect which means reducing the tax for larger vessels by passing it on to us

in the uk, the light dues tax paid by large container vessels (over 6,000 TEU) is £13,000 per visit but then, if they're within the UK tonnage tax regime, they pay next to no corporate tax so why should I not only pick up the loss in general taxation but also subsidise the owners of the very same ships?

on yer bike ...

its a well researched study (all 141 pages) ... they researched the SSR register to obtain numbers over 8m as "registration is required to secure a marine mortgage" .....

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I had previously read that they intended to use the SSR as the basis for the levy - so remove your vessel from SSR (mine is Pt 1 registered, and this was not even mentioned in the document so I may be lucky . my question is why have the RYA not been actively campaigning against it.

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Trinity House can do the same that Spanish are doing. If you go to a Spanish marina you are already paying light dues, ligh tax are included in the marina fee.

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You\'re already paying HMG

Actually we are already paying the govt to moor* and anchor. The collector is called the Crown Estates Commission which is a pretty rapacious bunch that works for G. Brown esq, not for Lizzie Windsor.

*Unless you moor or anchor in the Beaulieu river, which goes to his Lordship Montague, or in Duchy of Cornwall water, when you pay big ears himself.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>
 
Shipowning company answer

1. No shipping company pays tax. The reason the UK "tonnage dues" regime was brought in is that there were 0, zero, zilch, deepsea ships on the UK register, since any flag of convenience eliminates the need to pay taxes.

2. The UK tonnage tax is not espescially attractive, and why should any foreign shipowner put his ships on the UK register? Britannia doesn't Rule the Waves nowadays! One owner of big boxboats, Chang Yung-Fa of Evergreen, has been putting his ships on the UK tonnage tax register but that is because:

a) He pays Margaret Thatcher a very hefty retainer to look after his interests in the UK

b) She introduced him to Maurice Storey when Storey was head of the MCA

c) Storey now works for him heading his UK company

d) The Taiwanese flag is not welcome in Chinese ports, which is where the cargo comes from, so he needs another one.

The theory about flattening the light dues effect is based on the assumption that the UK wants to have merchant ships calling at its ports; there is a very active lobby of the big container lines fighting the Pds 13,000 per ship (=, in most cases, per week) tax we all pay. Personally, since in the case of my Line 30% of our cargo is unloaded in the UK, but precious little goes out (we load up in Germany) I don't see why the UK Govt is so bothered, since we no longer make anything that foreigners want to buy, but there we are. In our case, with 2,000 boxes coming off weekly in the UK that's a tax of Pds 6.50 per box, which is neither here nor there, really. The port company wants us to fork over another six pounds fifty per box (ten bucks US money) for "port security" because after the World Trade Centre in New York got clobbered by a couple of aircraft the Yanks went bananas and demanded massive new ship security bureaucracy. I only know one company that has sailed a ship into a skyscraper - it was engine failure, the building did not fall down and no-one was killed, but there we are...so far I have actually been asked for some ID, once, and they are building a fence...

I love your point about the quality of research in the report!



<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?
 
The question is - what will they do to you if you don't pay?

If you don't pay your radio license the RA or whatever they are now will take your wireless off you. Will these people take their buoys away, or poke you in the eye so you can't see them.

Complete nonsense. After they've employed 10,000 extra civil servants to start up a new agency to sub-contract collection to a specialist company there won't be enough cash left over to pay for a luminous dan buoy.

Better value for money to fire a few hundred people who already collect from big ships and call it quits.

What use are buoys anyway, about 27 of the things around Brambles and people STILL bump into it.

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Re: Easily offended? Don\'t read.

[ah em!] 'EM! Sorry, but I've had it. I own a crap car and a small house, why? cos every spare penny is spent on the boat, these b@stards won't be happy till they have cleaned me out. /forums/images/icons/mad.gif as hell. Mick.

<hr width=100% size=1>My Mum say's I'm not a fat b@st@rd, just heavy boned.
 
Re: Easily offended? Don\'t read.

Bloody auto censorship. Still bloody annoyed.

<hr width=100% size=1>My Mum say's I'm not a fat b@st@rd, just heavy boned.
 
Re: Shipowning company answer

corporation tax collected from shippers was £20m or 1.5% in 99. the calculation (by the treasury) is that if 2.5m tonnes of shipping generated £20m in tax then what level of tax would achieve the same or an increase in tax for a substantially greater tonnage. my calculation was 80m tonnes but could be wrong .... the giveaway is huge, Mirelle, relative to the GLA cost.

there is also a clause in the IR guidance allowing offshore cpy's, not necessarily 100% engaged in shipping, to include their tonnage. this stinks .... but i'm no tax lawyer

the uk tax regime must be reasonably attractive otherwise other european states would not be rushing to follow suit? Indeed, i think it was the danish transport minister who tried to reassure the danes that the tax generated before and after would be broadly similar but there would be an increase in shore based management employing retired marine regulators, no doubt.

now i never knew that maggie was 'receiving' from that source ... she must have been thrilled when MCA HQ acquired the nickname pink palace ....

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If we are going to have to pay for lights and marks then we should have more say in where they are put.

Now take the Solent as an example, speaking personally I don't give a **** for the deep water channel markers - all they do is tell me where the big stuff can't get me. So they can go. From Nab Tower inwards. I'd like something a little more conspicuous on the Bramble bank (perhaps in the shape of a giant wicket) and perhaps something by the Winners too.

I do use the buoys around Bembridge ledge but I certainly don't need 15m or so depth, this could usefully be reduced to 5m for most conditions.

Let's aim these marks so that they are of real use to us leisure boaters and then sit back and await the screams from those who really want them.

I'm fed up, not so much with the Government, as with big business constantly fighting like tigers to make even more profit at anyone's expense but theirs. The Government's role in this is to lie back and let themselves be walked all over. I thought when they stood up to ABP over Dibden there might be a flicker of hope for representing us rather than big business, but ho-hum.

Rant only over for now!

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Re: Easily offended? Don\'t read.

I'm like you, Mick. But there's such a thing as the final straw. And it doesn't have to be big: just psychologically significant. If they're going to have us registered, tracked and taxed, nit-picking computer-aided bureaucracy will kick in (you know, like SORNs, self-assessments, NI deferments, etc., etc.). Already, I spend several days a year having to prove that I am exempt from this, that, or the other rule or tax, the default case being that, "if, at one time, you were liable, you always shall be".

When they turn their sights on sailing, I'll call it a day and find something else to do with my time and money. Spend it on the foreign holidays I never take, for instance: delight in adding to Brown's all-time record balance of payments deficit which is of breathtaking magnitude. And why don't we hear that played out every month in the news like we used to.

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Blockade the Solent in protest - nm

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