Red Diesel fiasco - what's the latest?

[Seagreen]

Given that the EU commission is threatening legal action, I assume that things are "not going well"?
Sorry if this subject is becoming more tedious than an "ensign" thread.

 

[sailorman]

Red diesel review after Devon man fined

Mr Thorne had been mowing the Hartland Football Club's field for free every fortnight for a year
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...ry_continues_1 Related Stories

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-13805083

A review on the rules relating to the use of red diesel has been agreed after a campaign from an MP in Devon.
It followed the case of John Thorne, a North Devon farmer who was fined £250 in June for using the fuel to mow Hartland Football Club's field.
Torridge and West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox campaigned for a review, which has been ordered by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Justine Greening.
In June, HM Revenue and Customs said Mr Thorne had illegally used the diesel.
It said red diesel was purely for agricultural, horticultural and forestry use.
Mr Thorne had been mowing the football club's field for free every fortnight for a year.
Mr Cox said the review would consider whether the rules for using red diesel for charitable purposes could be relaxed.
Red diesel is used mainly for agricultural and heating purposes and is cheaper than the ordinary white diesel used by many motorists.

 

[Seagreen]

Yes, most of the news actually makes me want to emigrate ... to a different planet.

 

[savageseadog]

I'm not a stickler for rules or a fan of taxes but the farmer's conviction is correct. You should see the non agricultural loads that are being pulled around with red diesel tractors round rural Shropshire and Cheshire, apart from the evasion of tax and loss of trade to legal haulage companies they are a b$*&dy nuisance, inconsiderately driven and slow. The answer is of course to reduce our ridiculous fuel taxes but I don't suppose that will never happen.

 

[Appledore]

You should see the non agricultural loads that are being pulled around with red diesel tractors round rural Shropshire and Cheshire, apart from the evasion of tax and loss of trade to legal haulage companies they are a b$*&dy nuisance, inconsiderately driven and slow.

Farmers may only use red diesel in their own tractors when using them for their own purposes. If you use a tractor for other non-agricultural purposes, you need to use white diesel. This rule also apparently applies to those who drive vintage tractors to and from showgrounds, and it has been known for the 'Ministry' to visit such showgrounds to do on the spot checks. the law is probably quite straigntforward, but even me, as a tractor owner and user, am not clear of all the rules. No one ever told me, which is no excuse.

However, that's going off-topic. Yes I use red in my boat, and fill it up again when I visit St Peter Port with tax free red diesel. You have no choice out there!

 

[Seven Spades]

The rules out to be simple. You don't pay fuel excise duty if you don't use the vehicle on the road. Should be the same with boats, boats arenot getting away with not paying road duty because they don't use the roads etc.

 

[dunedin]

Life would be much simpler and fairer if diesel used in boats paid the same tax as diesel used in cars. Red diesel issues are an "own goal" on our part.

There is absolutely no moral reason why a sailing yacht or gin palace should pay less fuel tax than a teacher or nurse driving to work.
And if the reason for the tax is partly environmental, I bet a modern diesel car has a far far cleaner exhaust than any boat, due to the advanced electronics, particle filters etc

 

[jimbaerselman]

Life would be much simpler and fairer if diesel used in boats paid the same tax as diesel used in cars. Red diesel issues are an "own goal" on our part.

Agreed. A less expensive distribution and policing system would have only one type of diesel - tax paid diesel. Then let the protected species (cold pensioners, farmers, large gin palaces which only ever use fuel for heating) claim rebates through their tax returns.

 

[davidpbo]

I'm not a stickler for rules or a fan of taxes but the farmer's conviction is correct. You should see the non agricultural loads that are being pulled around with red diesel tractors round rural Shropshire and Cheshire, apart from the evasion of tax and loss of trade to legal haulage companies they are a b$*&dy nuisance, inconsiderately driven and slow. The answer is of course to reduce our ridiculous fuel taxes but I don't suppose that will never happen.

Do you know for sure they are being run on red diesel?

The two people I know who use their tractors for building work both use white. One is a farmer the other was.

 

[duncan99210]

I fail to understand why UK hasn't moved on to normal diesel for all users except those who are exempt (eg fishermen). That's how it works outside of UK and for those places serving both leisure and commercial traffic, they have two tanks. UK lost the battle for the red diesel exemption a few years back and the current fudge was never going to work in the long run.

 

[Boo2]

The answer is of course to reduce our ridiculous fuel taxes...

Or increase them to the same level playing field.

Boo2

 

[DaveS]

I fail to understand why UK hasn't moved on to normal diesel for all users except those who are exempt (eg fishermen). That's how it works outside of UK and for those places serving both leisure and commercial traffic, they have two tanks. UK lost the battle for the red diesel exemption a few years back and the current fudge was never going to work in the long run.

The difficulty is that in the less populated parts of these islands there are no marinas etc. catering for leisure traffic or a mix of leisure and commercial. Where diesel is available it is primarily for fishing boats, and the occasional dribble supplied to yachts is an incidental. Installation of white diesel tanks at such places is just not going to happen. Yotties would have to lug bottles from the (very) occasional garage, and MOBO trips like the round Britain and Ireland series pointed to by Dylan would become well nigh impossible.

The problem could be solved by making all marine diesel white and taxing it accordingly, with commercial operators subsequently claiming it back, but that would cause an uproar. What politician is going to propose something so unpopular just for the benefit of a bunch of rich yotties?

 

[Daydream believer]

Surely the answer is to tax all diesel equally whether it be red or white after a certain date
That would save having to clean tanks with red before filling with white
Then those entitled to a rebate could claim along with other items like VAT etc
If we went to Europe with red diesel we could rightfully say we had paid tax & if we could later reclaim it the foreigners would not know
Actually the claim that yachties should pay the same as teachers putting fuel in a car etc. is really quite valid
Claiming fuel tax back is just a simple exercise for commercial users.
Other sectors of the community may find it harder
Note that heating oil is a different grade of fuel to that used in engines (although i have run dumpers etc using heating fuel before now) so the tax could be different on this oil

 

[Cookee]

Life would be much simpler and fairer if diesel used in boats paid the same tax as diesel used in cars. Red diesel issues are an "own goal" on our part.

There is absolutely no moral reason why a sailing yacht or gin palace should pay less fuel tax than a teacher or nurse driving to work.
And if the reason for the tax is partly environmental, I bet a modern diesel car has a far far cleaner exhaust than any boat, due to the advanced electronics, particle filters etc

Actually my engines are badged Yanmar but are based on the BMW 3 litre (current model) car engine and the emissions are in excess of required by current standards.

I fail to understand why UK hasn't moved on to normal diesel for all users except those who are exempt (eg fishermen). That's how it works outside of UK and for those places serving both leisure and commercial traffic, they have two tanks. UK lost the battle for the red diesel exemption a few years back and the current fudge was never going to work in the long run.

I get a sense that some of the posters on this thread and volunteering to pay full price for fuel may be relatively small users of diesel (such as yacht owners) as anyone regularly filling up a motor boat would volunteer to increase the price of fuel by a considerable amount, surely they are the ones to ask as they are the biggest users?

It isn't just fishermen that pay reduced rate duty, all commercial users are entitled to that rate.

 

[maby]

Surely the answer is to tax all diesel equally whether it be red or white after a certain date
That would save having to clean tanks with red before filling with white
Then those entitled to a rebate could claim along with other items like VAT etc
If we went to Europe with red diesel we could rightfully say we had paid tax & if we could later reclaim it the foreigners would not know
Actually the claim that yachties should pay the same as teachers putting fuel in a car etc. is really quite valid
Claiming fuel tax back is just a simple exercise for commercial users.
Other sectors of the community may find it harder
Note that heating oil is a different grade of fuel to that used in engines (although i have run dumpers etc using heating fuel before now) so the tax could be different on this oil

I doubt you'll get any complaints here, but HMRC and the fishing industry might think differently - it would imply quite a lot more work for them.

 

[vyv_cox]

The difficulty is that in the less populated parts of these islands there are no marinas etc. catering for leisure traffic or a mix of leisure and commercial. Where diesel is available it is primarily for fishing boats, and the occasional dribble supplied to yachts is an incidental. Installation of white diesel tanks at such places is just not going to happen. Yotties would have to lug bottles from the (very) occasional garage.

Easily solved, as is done on every island every day in Greece. There are very few marinas anyway and many of them do not have a fuel supply. Diesel fuel is supplied to fishing and leisure boats by small road tankers, owned and filled by filling stations. Using this system for white diesel would benefit the garage owners and could solve the nonsense of red diesel immediately.

 

[DaveS]

Surely the answer is to tax all diesel equally whether it be red or white after a certain date
That would save having to clean tanks with red before filling with white
Then those entitled to a rebate could claim along with other items like VAT etc
If we went to Europe with red diesel we could rightfully say we had paid tax & if we could later reclaim it the foreigners would not know
Actually the claim that yachties should pay the same as teachers putting fuel in a car etc. is really quite valid
Claiming fuel tax back is just a simple exercise for commercial users.
Other sectors of the community may find it harder
Note that heating oil is a different grade of fuel to that used in engines (although i have run dumpers etc using heating fuel before now) so the tax could be different on this oil

I have no problem with paying road fuel prices for diesel and, for all I use, it would have no significant effect on my sailing costs (mobo drivers might have a different view). The practicalities have to be considered, though. The vast majority of marine diesel used in the UK is for commercial usage, where low duty red is entirely in order and in line with the rest of the EU - and beyond. The "all white", or "white and red both fully taxed" solutions only make sense from the perspective of a leisure user. While such usage might be dominant in fairly limited bits of the south of England and perhaps the Clyde, overall it is very much the exception. As I asked above, what politician is going to propose inconveniencing the commercial users and putting them at a disadvantage relative to those in other countries for the convenience of leisure boat users?

Your proposal involves commercial users claiming back tax and, while on the face of it, that should be a fairly simple exercise (after taking the initial cash flow hit), it would involve keeping receipts and completing extra paperwork. In the original consultation commercial users came out strongly against such a scheme.

 

[DaveS]

Easily solved, as is done on every island every day in Greece. There are very few marinas anyway and many of them do not have a fuel supply. Diesel fuel is supplied to fishing and leisure boats by small road tankers, owned and filled by filling stations. Using this system for white diesel would benefit the garage owners and could solve the nonsense of red diesel immediately.

I'm not familiar with Greece. Do the small road tankers currently carry both red and white diesel, or only red?

 

[vyv_cox]

I'm not familiar with Greece. Do the small road tankers currently carry both red and white diesel, or only red?

There is no red diesel, it is all white. No idea whether commercial craft pay the same rate or claim tax back. I am simply offering a practical option to the 'no extra white diesel tank' argument.

 

[Cookee]

Easily solved, as is done on every island every day in Greece. There are very few marinas anyway and many of them do not have a fuel supply. Diesel fuel is supplied to fishing and leisure boats by small road tankers, owned and filled by filling stations. Using this system for white diesel would benefit the garage owners and could solve the nonsense of red diesel immediately.

Greece isn't shackled by the same health and safety **** that we are! The inconvenience of having to bring a road tanker down to the quay every time someone wants fuel (If there's a spot to do it) outweighs any advantage.