Tax on 4x4's

[Botang]

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We need to stop taxing this country and start being competative again, give tax releif to our companies that are clean so we can start to become self supporting again and compete on a global scale. At the moment we are a fecking joke!!

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To add to gIzeE's comments:

My family run a small chauffeur/taxi company and have been doing so for the last 55 years which is quite an achievement in our industry. As it stands at the moment we only do long distance journeys mainly to and from airports, covering around 70,000 miles per car per year. On that basis we must be the scum of the earth as far as the government is concerned because not only are they trying to impose pay per mile tax which will make it impossible to provide our service, they are charging small businesses more tax, and they are trying to stop our passengers flying or travelling to major cities in the form of congestion charging.

[EssFour]

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The problem is there are more people in this country like yourself that probably think this, but it would be the worse thing to ever happen to this country.

We used to be a self supporting country, and remember that is quite important as we are also an island, but as the years have gone by our government has taxed our companies higher than most other places, and taxed our fuel higher than most other place too, up until the point where we can no longer compete.

So all the major comapnies, all the big products, all the things we class as essentials are now brought in from overseas, all we are left with that we can really call our own is the small independant traders that can offer something different, those that don't have to compete on a price, but offer a service.

If we start introducing pence per mile that will disappear, we will only be left with the big clothes stores, flat pack furniture, processed fruit and veg from Asda, fast food chains, etc. etc.

As an example we have a footwear agency, now most of the footwear and clothing industry is run by agents, guys and girls who take on 3 or 4 different brands and sell to the multiples and the independant stores. We have a 9 week period from when we get our samples to when the factory closes the order books so they can start making the product. In that 9 weeks I have to see 87 customers, they are all over East Anglia, Midlands, Wales, Lincs and S.Yorks. The only way I can get them all in is to arrive at the first appointment at 9am and try to get to another before the owner leaves for the day,this means I have absolutely no choice in leaving at 6am and setting off again at 5/6/7pm, the times when we will be charged at up to £1.30 a mile on major roads.

At the moment I pay £5500 a year in fuel tax to do my mileage. We worked out that if we did half the mileage on these main roads at peak times, a quarter on minor roads but again peak times and the other quarter in the lowest band it would cost us around £30,000 a year in charges. At that point I would not be able to carry on with my job, everyone I have spoken to in my industry are the same. I have been speaking to alot of people who travel for a living and they are all saying the same thing, the guy across the road from me has a fruit and veg business with 4 shops, he said that when this charge comes he will have to close, he is not big enough to dictate to the delivery companies that he wants them to drive through the night, only Asda, Waitrose, Sainsburys have that power.

You will see alot of business' disappear virtually over night, we will be left with these big stores only, who also get all their products from overseas, from the states and china, so well done this government, by taxing us so highly we are not making the world a greener place we are just giving up what little control we had left to the worlds biggest polluters!! Do you think the States and China will step back and say 'You know what? with all this power we have lets make the world a better place!' Of course not, they will just build more power stations and factories so they can keep up with the demand coming out of the UK!

We need to stop taxing this country and start being competative again, give tax releif to our companies that are clean so we can start to become self supporting again and compete on a global scale. At the moment we are a fecking joke!!

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Well put Guy. That is the reality of Globalisation.

[Chrisg]

this is all sooo depressing