More Tax Scams

Well, just as predicted, it has happened.

Councils to charge up to £20 per day for diesel cars to enter city centres, so is this a valid tax or not?

Around 30 years ago there were two defined routes to take, in Asian countries they opted for electric power for cars and its derivitives such as fuel cells which use hydrogen to produce electricity to power its electric motors; while in Europe it decided to go down the diesel route and began to produce diesel engined cars following the example of France who had all manner of cars from major manufacturers converted to diesel engines, one favourite of mine was the Fiat Mirifiori which only came with petrol engines, and boy did they move with diesel engine conversions.

Times moved on and most manufacturers produced diesel engined cars for the European markets and then the EU saw a way of making potentially infinate sources of income and introduced environmental taxes and emissions based taxes came into being which led to the introduction of individual country taxation based upon the CO2 emissions of vehicles, but why CO2? this was used because it was the cheapest way of introducing a taxation system and yielded the highest returns in monetery terms, hence a cheap system which made Governments a lot of money. Other emissions were highlighted at the time by engineers, environmentalists, and many other groups, so Government introduced a 3% surcharge on diesel.

Lorries and commercial vehicles have run on diesel for years as it is a waste product of petrol production, diesel produces high torque figures, diesel was a cheap waste product, and it was cheap and easy to convert petrol engined vehicles to diesel operation, and in many cases most commercial vehicles are only available with diesel engines, so why diesel?
Diesel engines have more efficient combustion than petrol engines and this leads to a significant reduction in the quantities of fuel used for a specific or identical journey, diesel engines operate at maximum fuel efficiency right from start up, petrol engines have to warm up before they operate at maximum efficiency and often it can take 15-20 miles before a petrol engine warms up to its optimum operating temperature, in most cases diesel engined vehicles are the higher mileage vehicles which sit on the motorway at the speed limit for most of their life which is their ideal operating environment. Diesel engines are also more robustly constructed to do a lot more miles than petrol engines and are used in high torque applications in vans, lorries, power generation, boats, and a host of other applications as diesel is less volatile than petrol and it doesn't evaporate over time as petrol does, so essentially its easier and cheaper to produce, safer to transport and use, and store.

So where is the scam? despite Governments promoting the use of diesel it is now the devil of fuels according to many, but if we look a little wider it shows a different picture; if we look at a BMW 1 series: the 116i petrol produces 134 grams of CO2 while the 118D diesel produces 113 grams of CO2, so the Government would be making more tax from the petrol engined model under the old scheme as the 116 petrol was in a higher taxation class, clearly showing its about money and nothing else.

Why are emissions so high in city centres? because of the councils agenda of deliberately creating congestion; no engine works well in stop start traffic irrespective of engine type, look back and we can see the speed humps they introduced which cause a yo yo effect of slowing down and accelerating of vehicles, instant high emissions. Look at how many councils deliberately re-phased traffic lights to create congestion and were caught out doing so, yet nothing was ever done about it even though they were caught cheating the system; then look at how many roads were changed from free flowing roads with the introduction of traffic calming measures such as introducing mini roundabouts at every verse end and the narrowing of lanes, and the wholesale pushing out of kerbs and similar measures to constrict the roads to vehicles. Next we have the deliberate environmental measures such as the introduction of tram systems and cycle lanes using the same road space, or the introduction of little used bus lanes which allowed the use of these lanes by buses and cycles only, how dangerous, and the introduction of cycles stopping in front of vehicles at traffic lights. Now combine all of these measures and nobody with half a brain can deny the deliberate congestion creation.

Now look at the hidden costs to the consumer, you have a gas leak and your plumber comes on an emergency call out, now you the consumer has an additional £20 charge added to your bill, now take this charge and add it to the bill of every workman such as roofers, builders, delivery drivers, and everyone along the line is hit with a hidden stealth tax, your goods have to be delivered to the shops, your online shopping has to be delivered, and the numerous trades people you employ will also add this to their bills, so the consumer loses every time.

If people switch back to petrol the producers will have to put on more delivery vehicles adding to the congestion as petrol cars use more fuel than diesel cars, and there will be a massive increase in less safe fuels on the road which is a massive increase in risks to motorists and the public alike.

Now the catch 22 situation, what if you have an older diesel engined vehicle for economy, you are on a lower wage, you are unemployed, you work in a city centre, or you live in a city centre? again you are going to be hit with an extra £100 bill for simply going to work; this will lead to many people having to give up work and go on benefits as they are being taxed out of work, if you cannot afford a new car, what good is a scrappage scheme, again the scrappage scheme is another way of getting people indo debt and we all know where that leads.

What about the elderly, the disables, the lower wage earners, all hit and put into a poverty trap.

People would call me loopy when I said traffic lights and roundabouts were a scam and are there to create congestion. I am glad others can see it.

Good post assassin.



Mavrik

Thank you Mavrik.

Many were caught out rephasing traffic lights and admitted it.

You should see the traffic lights up here in SW Scotland. Nearly every road has a set of lights, so called temporary lights, it's all done to create as much hassle as possible then when people get pissed off having sat at a dozen lights, they put their foot down out of anger and to make up time, then just up the road, tucked in behind whatever they can find, is the cops, and they have a field day catching cars and lorries speeding.

Corruption and scammers at they finest.



Mavrik