Quote:
Originally Posted by gray52
is the government spending all this new ved banding money on mother earth.....NO! its just aload of spin to pay for the billions that is wasted by them because its us tax payers footing the bill. how long will it be before band a goes from £0 to having to pay. if every motorist changed to a £0 tax car in the next 3 years the tax would be up to £100+ in the next budget.
if the money for global warming was spent on preventing it then fine, bit like road tax, pay your tax and in return we will give you poorly maintained roads as we spend the money on other things. we should have the best road network in the world and very few gridlocked roads whatever time of the day.
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This also misses the point in another way. Money raised in green taxes *is* preventing global warming, full stop, because it's influencing peoples choices and behaviour.
There is a mistaken belief that: green taxes increase the tax burden; green taxes are associated with tax-and-spend left-wing policies; green taxes should be hypothecated. All of these are wrong (but, unfortunately, the current government is using green taxes at the minute to raise the tax burden. This is government's choice - and stealth! - but it is not a necessary consequence).
Consideration of the overally tax bill should take place independently of how those taxes are raised. If you then raise money through green taxes, then they should be used to reduce other taxes, e.g. income tax. I'd much rather polluting cars were taxed to hell (as a Civic owner!) if it were to lead, as it should, to lower personal taxes.
Green tax money should not be used to "save the environment" because that implies that spending can help (which it can, but not always), and that governments spend money wisely and efficiently, which they absolutely do not! Raise the green tax, use that mechanism to change behaviour and reduce taxes in other ways.
Similarly, green taxes are not part of a global conspiracy, they're a intelligent (and predominantly economically liberal, not left-wing) way of tackling a *real* problem. Real being determined by scientists, the owerwhelming majority of whom believe global warming is caused by human behaviour and atmospheric emissions.
Courant