The gov't receive zero from street parking charges - all goes to local authority.

Not 100% true - they receive VAT from parking charges (that's why you can get a receipt from some machines - it'll have the VAT number on it and you can claim it back if you're a company)

I'm not sure what happens with machines where you don't get receipts...

The government also take a nice little cut from tolls (as in the severn bridge) - only in recent years have they intoroduced the VAT on those though (which is nice)

Instead of all this talk why dont we actally go join these people and be more pro-active towrds the situation.
We should contact other car forums and all head down togther in a massive convoy.

GO ON THEN!!!! :rolleyes:

Pete

petrol is 55 cents a litre for 98 ron out here at the mo:p listening to all the crap goin on back home makes me wish i did not have to go back to crummy old england

Government needs to change. All this money they collect off the hard working indigineous people of this country and then spend on projects and ideas that do nothing but make our lives worse.

I don’t understand how people can argue that 60% plus tax on something that most people need to get to work for instance is reasonable. Argument always is that it’s need for the ‘services’ the government provides. If they stopped spending so much on an abused asylum and benefits system that seems to be encouraging the chavs and problem immigrants into the country they could lower the tax. Why are some people hell bent on defending the government – can’t you look around and see the state this country is in.

The hard working tax paying majority pay through the nose so the government can spend on the minority groups who just take the piss quite frankly. This great health service and police force we have? Yeah doing a fantastic job aren’t they! Education system? Wonderful that so many seem to get A’s and standards are going up – just a shame business seems to think standards are going down!

To make matters worse they constantly target the motorist. Number of revenue raising speed camera’s has been going up and up, criminalisinng more and more normal people, and slowly everybody seems to change their mind. Government spin and propaganda convinces the weak minded that what they are doing is reasonable.

Same with fuel – it’s now reached a ridiculous price and are they lowering tax to help out the typical person in this country? In a democracy, people should have the right to have a say in how the country is run. If the majority think something is unfair or bad it should be changed to find a better solution.

Instead what has happened is we have a elected dictatorship where we all kid ourselves that we actually have a say in direction things are going. Government just does what they want – put out a load of spin to justify it – and then take the line that those individuals who actually have a mind of their own and don’t agree are somehow immoral, stupid, lacking vision, zenophobic or whatever best fits with getting their agenda accepted.

How can people kid themselves this country is in a good state? Do you think developing countries envy our democracy? People in this country don’t want to hear that we may actually not be doing things in the best way – course not – UK society is the greatest in the world… isn’t it? Expats who come back to the UK after being away for 10 years or so always seem to say they think the place is going down the toilet by the way – seen enough articles in the Hong Kong news papers.

This petrol protest debate is systematic of the problem. Most people think its an unreasonable situation that needs an alternative – but nope, got to listen to the minority who shout loudly and tell us why it can’t be changed and must be accepted. In a democracy everything is subject to change.

Human rights all the time… I’ll be exercising my human rights by attending a protest when they kick off to show my disagreement with the government. Just wait though… soon as the protest start they will be using the guilt trip tactics about ambulances running out of petrol and so on to get it stopped. And people will stop protesting because they will feel guilty… and the governments gets it’s way again and nothing changes and things get worse and the silent majority carries on getting f**ked.

I will be down at Fawley after GB Rally. We will go to the rally in the missus pug. 500 miles for £40. Not making so much now Mr Brown. I would have spent 3 times as much in the Scooby, but refuse to pay the price now. The US & French realise the impact on the economy & have acted but not rip off Britain.
Calling the tax a fuel duty, deceives most people. Then adding vat, is a tax on a tax. People forget this, a 5p increase in duty is approx 6p in real terms.
Just to highlight the full impact, taxation on fuel (pre hurricane) was approx 260%.
Everybody needs to support this protest. It is time that the muppets in Westminster feel the force of the Country. As motorists we are penalised beyond belief. Speed camera's = points = insurance increase = 5% extra to the treasury (insurance premium tax). Car crime = insurance increase = 5% extra to the treasury (IPT). They don't care about stopping the little ****s, the just move them to another area to carry on (asbo's). The only thing they want to deal with is Fraud (money from the treasury) & violent crime, as it does not look good. They even now want us to drink longer to raise more funds.
The one guarenteed thing is that some people are going to loose their jobs. We will get people during the protests moaning that they want to earn a living & it is being disrupted, but companies will save money somewhere.
We have our own company & over the last few months, I have taken more notice of transport costs. If some courier's go out of business or amalgamate there will be less competition. We all know that competition keeps prices low.
So it wont be just fuel draining your pockets.
The latest news on BBC is that British Gas are to raise gas & electric by 14%. To this add vat.
Now I wonder how long the other suppliers will wait to play catch up.
The choice to act is an individual one, but make it wisely. Negative equity followed the last boom in house & fuel prices.

Nicely put, and I will be making my choice to do whatever I can :)

That sort of thing works.....NOT!

Protests really helped the community charge, the council tax and the CSA. The fuel protest really helped us last time too - I nearly lost my job because of it!

Thanks a lot to those supporting the protest. It's going to **c* my week up nicely!

Edit to add... Nice post Smatt

Oh it worked all right. The government can never give in to direct action at the time that action takes place....they can never been seen to capitulate...

But it did make them put at stop to the fuel tax escalator.

And yes, the poll tax riots did work too...in just the same way. Shortly afterwards, the tax was scrapped ;)

I'm in dissagreement that the protests were effective in making these changes, especially the poll tax. It was a disaster and had to be changed, protest or no protest.

yeh it did the protest help scrap poll tax ...

they see just how much people was pissed off

the reason the poll tax was scrapped was because people refused to pay it, collection became imposible with people refusing to register, people moved around, the courts started to fill up with unpayers etc.

With the poll tax we had a choice, we could choose to not pay and cause the enforcers of this tax maximum disruption to their revenue stream that became imposible to reconcile.

With fuel tax we have no choice, we have to buy fuel to live our daily lives, we cant avoid paying the tax as its taken at point of purchase of this esential comodity.

The two are not close to comparable issues.

The reasons that the Poll Tax were abandoned had little to do with the protests or the difficulties of collection (which latter were expected anyway) - can you really imagine Thatcher giving way to protests? No, the problem was simpler: work was coming back from increasing numbers of staunch Tory voters that unless it was abandoned then they would vote elsewhere. It didn't matter if people who didn't vote Tory anyway were against it, but this DID matter.


M