paying your way

[bigmart]

I would suggest that the already disproportionate amount that boaties contribute to rural economies is justification enough for the lack of tax on fuel.

The ludicrous cost of collecting a tax at two rates from each fuelling berth & policing the opportunities for fiddling the system would easily be another.

With your attitude to paying taxes you deserve to get ripped off by all & sundry, & probably will.

 

[bigmart]

Ignorant idiots who follow their leader like sheep & look after No.1 to the detrement of the weakest are exactly what got this country into all kinds of mire over past decades.

A sense of social justice & a preparedness to pay a fair proportion towards the greater good would always make for a better society.

Those core Labour voters are the same people who managed to think for themselves a few years ago & stop following their leader.

In other words, a reasoned argument, not mindless bigotry will win out.

Mind you, England is a better place for Foxes nowadays.

 

[Guest]

I thought I heard today that this Government was stopping spin.Looks to me like they are using this forum to assess and soften up attitudes to more regulation and taxation.I'm only a plumber with a secondhand boat that probably costs less than a posh car,but I am well aware that there are a lot of ignorant and jealous folks out there who assume that if you have a yacht you are rich, and therefore should be brought down by regulation and taxation.Do not give them any excuse to do it,or they will.

 

[Guest]

bigmart writes

> Mind you, England is a better place for Foxes nowadays.

Why? Have they banned cars while I've been away? I'd be prepared to bet that more foxes, badgers, hares and rabbits are left wounded and in pain at the side of the road than are ever killed by the hunts.

It's like these damned fool potestors against live exports. If they had any kind of sense they would have picketed against veal coming IN to the country instead of calves going OUT then farmers probably wouldn't be having to destroy day old male calves following the collapse of the market in the UK.

Short term solutions don't address long term problems.

Regards



Fred



Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

 

[halcyon]

Anti hunting debat on radio, 4% killed by hunt, 60% killed on road.

Short answer.

Brian

 

[Mirelle]

I had a solutio to that, before 1997

I proposed that rather than hand Hong Kong to China, we should retain it and give the Isle of Wight to China in exchange. The economic benefits would have been huge, in both directions - indeed I suspect that the UK economy would have taken off like a rocket.

This proposal was objected to by, inevitably, the Isle of Wight sailing community (Sir John Nicholson comes to mind as one).

 

[bigmart]

The point really is that it's not a party political argument, that will bring down the tax burdens on our pleasures, but the general ignorance of the mass populous.

The mud slinging against "New Labour" could just as easily have been directed against the Tories a few years ago. Using this kind of argument dilutes the validity of your rationale, to the point where, you turn off any support you may have gained from the non boating community.

I see no diference between any party these days. If it suits, to get the general populous against a common foe, & direct their attention away from something else, then so be it. Adolf Hitler was a master at this & successive people have emulated him since.

Make no mistake, if it suits, they will come after us. Of course if we can destroy their argument at birth perhaps we can survive.

The big question is could a bunch of boaties ever be that organised.

I just feel that by keep on bringing the subject up, as successive contributors do, that we anaesthetise ourselves to the threat & fool ourselves into thinking that it is inevitable.

 

[Mirelle]

Taking a long view, I think you are right

The Attlee Government imposed punitive taxation on yachting and imposed severe restrictions on the import of timber, which is what yachts were built from back then, and cotton for sails. This crippled the UK boatbuilding industry and allowed the Danes and the Germans, in particular, ro reconstruct theirs by exporting beautiful wooden boats to the USA, such as all but one of the 140 Concordia Sloops. (No, I don't understand how post-War Germany could afford to imprt teak and Britain could not!)

The Churchill Government repealed this and the UK boating industry generated the dinghy sailing explosion of the 1950's and 60's, which caused the expansion in cruising in the 60's and 70's - until the74-77 Wilson Government imposed a 25% VAT rate on sailing and all to do with it, no doubt prompted by E. Heath's high profile sailing.

What I hope I have shown is that a natural inclination to tax sailing does lurk deep inside the Labour Party.

Now - Light Dues. Britain is anomalous in charging these as a tax on merchant ships using our ports. One odd effect of this is that ships visiting other European ports get the use of UK navaids on the N Sea and Channel free. There has recently been a cap on light dues and the system is under review. We should remember that yachts used to pay Light Dues and the system of collection was simple - if your boat was registered under Part 1 of the 1894 MSA you got a bill once a year. Not too hard to collect, because any harbour master could ask to see your Certifcate of registry and receipt for Light Dues.

I cannot justify the fuel tax arrangement.

The track record seems to suggest that charging a "luxury tax" on boats does not work well, precisely because so many of us, eg me, have ordinary small or old boats that we can only just afford to run, whilst the megabuck yachts are generally tax sheltered anyway in one of dozens of ways.

The track record shows that light dues can be collected from yachts, and with the whole system under review as it is at present we may expect changes here. Morings might also be taxed, proably at local level, as representing a public good abstracted for private benefit. Recent case law has gone against local authorities but there is no stopping an Act of Parliament here.

I think we will be paying more taxes shortly.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Cyclist replies

Money is not spent willingly by govt (local or national) on cycling. Every penny has to be lobbied for. And even then, most Govt money is spent on ludicrous 'on street' cycle lanes, most of which consist of white paint and/or green tarmac, and are not much use to anyone.

Dedicated cycle routes tend to constructed under the sponsorship of Sustrans, using 50% money collected by members which is matched by lottery grants. Where leisure cycle routes are provided, they have a very beneficial impact on the local economy. The coast-to-coast ride (www.c2c-guide.co.uk) has created a a linear small business boom in tearooms, B&B, cycle repair and hire, etc. Farmhouses in the dales which hardly ever saw a stranger apart from the postman, now get a regular stream of visitors if they provide some sort of service.

Commuter cycling has a beneficial impact - less congestion, less pollution, less health problems among cyclists (so cheaper for NHS).

To compare cycling, an everyday means of transport for a large (and growing) number of people with leisure sailing is a little off-centre. Granted there are plenty of weekend warriors who drive vast distances to mountain bike, and there is some similarity there, but cycling is a much broader church than just that.

 

[vyv_cox]

Another cyclist replies

Looking at old film of factories clocking off, kids coming out of school, people going our for Bank Holdays, etc, it is evident that very large numbers of people used their bikes as everyday transport 50 or so years ago. Very few do the same now.

In Holland this decline has not taken place. Cycling represents a significant proportion of public transport that, if not available, would put increased pressure on other, motorised forms. Clearly the terrain of Holland helps a lot, but a significant factor is the investment in cycle lanes by the authorities, parking for bikes in public places, traffic laws protecting the cyclist, etc. Overall savings to the transport economy must be enormous relative to the investment.

 

[Guest]

Re: Taking a long view, I think you are right

Hi

Mirelle writes

> (No, I don't understand how post-War Germany could afford to imprt teak and Britain could not!)

Ah - well there I can enlighten you. As part of the reconstruction of Germany all the debts were written off, the country had a new currency and a fresh start. Here in the UK the victors were saddled with massive debts and the cost of maintaining a standing army in germany (over a million men). So, which was the greatest economic miracle? Germany, supported by the allies and free of debt rising from the ashes of a shattered economy or the UK actually paying off their debts while still supporting Germany? Even up to the mid 1990's hundreds of thousands of wage earners in Germany were paid for by the UK and even if many weren't taxed they still spent their salaries in the local economy.

Back to the point......

The south coast is staggering under a huge weight of boats. Thank god they don't all go out at the same time otherwise the Solent would be so crowded that it would become impossible to navigate safely. Some Marinas charge £5k plus for a 10M boat with full tidal access. You almost have to start queueing the day before to get in to some popular harbours.

These boats are not only dumping CO2 into the atmosphere but the majority of them are dumping raw sewage into the Solent and the surrounding harbours as well as other effluent and rubbish.

Taxes will go up. Fuel will cost you more. Many harbours already tax on moorings and more will follow suit. You can either fight the taxes (and will probably have moderate success for a while) or you can campaign to improve the facilities and the environment. At the moment the UK has an exemption from the EU on charging duty on marine diesel. It won't last.

I thin boating in the rest of the K will suffer because of what is happening in the south. Mark my words. Would it not be worth campaigning for decent facilities such as showers and toilets, pump out stations, rubbish collection points, disposal points for dangerous pollutants and so on?


Regards



Fred

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

 

[KevB]

Taxing boaters out of boating will help kill many 'rural' business and cost the country more in the long run. I no longer rush to take a foreign holiday as I prefer to spend my time on my boat spending my money in UK shops and restaurants and in UK business e.g. chandleries. If I had to give up boating my disposable cash would end up in foreign pockets.
The Govmnt by trying to make a quick buck out of my past time would ultimately cost them dear.
Think of the thousands of pounds we each spend every year playing with our boats, all that tax on the goods and services we buy and all the tax on the salaries of the people who work servicing our past time.

Nah, not even a Labour government is stupid enough to mess with us. I hope!

Boating makes us spend our disposable cash in the UK, not abroad.

 

[Mirelle]

Re: Taking a long view, I think you are right

Yes, indeed. Looking at what has become of the Solent, since I first sailed there thirty years ago (and we East Coasters thought it was crowded then!) it seems clear that we do need some sort of a Plan, and frankly a group of people who are seen, perhaps wrongly, as trying very hard to get some things (tax free fuel, free navaids, no local taxation on moorings) for nothing start at a disadvantage when it comes to national politics.

None of us can honestly say that a reasonable annual contribution to Light Dues would change our sailing habits, and only people with high powered power boats would notice the end of the fuel tax exemption - sailing yacht owners certainly would not.

We don't have proper sewage or oily slop reception facilities, and this makes us dirtier (yes, dirtier) than we need to be.

If we were seen as a "responsible" group, fiscally (using the same argument that the RYA has used against compulsory licensing) we would get a better hearing on these points.

 

[KevB]

Re: Taking a long view, I think you are right

"and only people with high powered power boats would notice the end of the fuel tax exemption"
Oh, that's ok then?????? I'm all right Jack!
How selfish you are.

 

[Mirelle]

Not really

It's a plain statement of the facts.

But if you want to generate a discussion, try this:

These boats are very expensive to buy and to maintain, and they are almost always kept in marina berths, which are also expensive. Can you really expect the rest of us to believe that retaining a tax exemption originally intended for working fishermen, just to save the owners of these boats a few pounds, is a cause worth fighting for, when most people's experience of large fast TSDY's is just tossing about in the wash caused by thoughtless driving?

 

[Bergman]

Re: Not really

As someone who spent £6 on diesel fuel last year I would not worry unduly about cost increase.

But thats not really the point.

It should not be the case that one has to find reasons for not being taxed. Taxes are not a punishment from God for causing wash or being rich or driving the wrong kind of boat.

If there is no reason for Government to spend more money there is no reason to raise more tax.

As for pollution - making holding tanks compulsory would address the problem, a boat tax would not.

I do think that Barry seriously underestimates the stupidity of Labour Government.