Light dues study out

[jamesjermain]

They have, Sir, they Have!

The RYA Mag published details of this report in the last issue, out a couple of months ago. The RYA has been making representation to all concerned for months, if not years (this is a hardy perennial). One of the reasons Light Dues for yachtdsmen was not introduced 15 years ago is becuase of constant lobbying by the RYA.

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[Mirelle]

a pedant writes...

A "shipper" is someone who places cargo for export on board a ship; you are in good company, since the "Economist" newspaper perpetrates the same solecism.

Britain was one of the last of the European former maritime nations to adopt this measure, after the Norwegians, the Danes, the Germans, the Dutch and in fact almost everyone apart from the Belgians! Greece has always had a variant of it.

My company employs awfully clever tax lawyers from big City firms for the purposes of something called tax leveraged leasing, whereby a Bank pretends to the Treasury that they are a British shipowner and are taking risk, so the Treasury then gives them a 20% capital allowance, which they very sportingly share with us in exchange for us taking all the risk, and then some, and promising never, ever, to use the British tonnage tax register. We use FOCs instead. I don't begin to understand it, but it pays for the lawyers' fleets of Porsches, paddocks and horsey wives in the Home Counties. I believe it is known as Socialism.

If we want to trade with other nations, we need ships to carry stuff in; since we no longer have any, we have to use other peoples'. If we tax them for coming to our ports, we are in effect taxing ourselves since they will add the cost of the tax to the freight.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?