Green Taxes? What's the Problem?

[Ardesco]

In a globalised world where the value of labour is diminished, it makes sense for governments to shift away from sourcing tax via employment to sourcing via consumption.

Shift away?? Don't you mean sourcing via consumption as well as sourcing tax via employment

[BobTheCrate]

Poor people [snip] won't be able to afford to fly.

But how will NL be able to get their 1.2 million poorly paid people in from Romania & Bulgaria ? Even if they afford to fly here, they'll never afford the flight back... oh silly me, they're not going back.

Contractors will be largely unaffected

Blimey - someone's sure tempting fate !

[BoredBloke]

So NL are promoting the idea of extra tax on petrol etc to curb the greenhouse effect.

They are also promoting extra tax on alcohol to stop underage drinking.

Two of the best sources of revenue generation - It is almost as if the two were linked and that in some bizarre way our world class chancellor is stuck for a couple of quid.

I would happily pay the green taxes if they were replacing other taxes rather than being on top of. But that is not likely to happen either.

On Sunday that slimy sh1te Miliband (sp!) quoted one stat. If 1 million of us changed 3 light bulbs to the energy efficient ones, then it would be like removing 100,000 cars off our roads. So that means 1 car = 30 light bulbs. I've replaced 10 at home. I'm leaving all the lights on so that these ten go and I can do another ten. Once I get to 30 I'll be carbon neutral!

[Ardesco]

Ever seen energy efficient lightbulbs that work with dimmer switches? I wouldn't mind saving a few bob in low wattage bulbs, but not if it means I can't adjust the lighting level to match the ambience of the room.

[DimPrawn]

Just wear sunglasses if you want the same effect with low energy bulbs, or simply swap them out for lower/higher wattage ones as the mood takes you.

HTH

[BoredBloke]

Most of the bulbs in our house are the low wattage energy efficient types. We had a few problems getting the shorter ones for some lamps etc but we have sorted that now. Should I keep the reciept incase the bulb does not last the 7 years quoted on the packet?

I want to have a ground pump put in the graden but never seem to get around to sorting it. I'd be happy to go the whole hog on this green rubbish if only I could get a grant or something - How easy is it to get on benefits if you own your company? Might be worth opting out of work for a while if it meant that the govt would insulate my house

[hyperD]

It's not a green tax, it's another Brown tax.

I've just replaced all my energy efficient ones to trendy halogen hidden ceiling lights - instant 400W of retina-wrecking light followed by a mushroom cloud at a flick of a switch.

Our 2% token to greenhouse gasses is insignificant compared with China and India. By all means, save the rainforests...

With the Miliband "leak", the big media fanfare made over a report from a biarite appointee, the lack of intelligent question from the media of this report; it all stinks of yet another rouse to trump one over the nu-green Tories and to replenish the dwindling treasury coffers.

[xoggoth]

Normally, when a government raises taxes it has something specific in mind to waste the money on, total losers and their spawn, politicians' perks, parasitic civil servants' pensions, extra parasitic civil servants, useless immigrants, wars, extra security to cope with consequences of said wars, donations to fraudulent EU farmers and so on.

In this case the taxation itself is the primary purpose rather than the money it raises, they hope to encourage people to be less wasteful of fuel and energy. It is an enormous tax windfall with no prior demands on it. Let's see, will this tax...

1) be part of an overall tax neutral package with targetted reductions in VAT to encourage consumers to save energy and buy more efficient goods and in corporation tax to encourage companies to the same ends and also to invest in research and methods to produce more efficient products?

2) be wasted on MORE total losers and their spawn, MORE politicians' perks, MORE parasitic civil servants' pensions, MORE extra parasitic civil servants, MORE useless immigrants, MORE wars, MORE extra security to cope with consequences of said wars, MORE donations to fraudulent EU farmers and so on?

3) be spent in some apparently worthy way, e.g. in an attempt to provide a decent public transport system in the UK which will enrich lots of foreign consultants, be collossally overspent, inconvenience us all for years and deliver a system, if it delivers anything at all, that will be so utterly crap that hardly anybody will use it and more taxes will be needed to raise the £5bn needed to bribe Disneyland to take it over as a theme park?

4) destroy the competitiveness of the UK economy even further requiring more taxes to be raised to support the total losers etc. from a declining GDP and donating even more of our business to the likes of India and China, who won't give a fek about efficiency or climate change, causing a global INCREASE in CO2 emissions just like Brownstuff's destruction of our road haulage business has already?

5) all of options 2, 3 and 4 with necessity for extra taxes that I haven't thought of?

[threaded]

Global warming is utter bollox. Tony B'Liar saying it is "disaster" is more than enough proof for any sane person to see it is nothing but the latest nonsense for windbag politicians to strut and pontificate about.

Doesn't matter what the UK and USA do. We could all shut down every powerstation, steel mill, kill all the methane producing cows and sheep and the CO2 output will be replaced within 2 years by the Chinese on their own.

"Businesses and individuals all need to work together to respond to the challenge. Strong, deliberate choices of government are essential to motivate change."

[xoggoth]

I certainly do, or did, believe it is not bollox, however, I have to admit that the fact that politicians now generally believe it is true is a very convincing argument against it