The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Consider the impact before taxing
According to a report by Sky News, the government is considering ending the freeze on alcohol and fuel duty to help fund the boost to the NHS.
This move suggests that whatever the rhetoric coming out of Number 10, there is no “Brexit dividend”.
Rather, we are going to have to raise extra revenue from elsewhere. I have no doubt that so-called “sin taxes” can be an appropriate method to raise the money. People avoid paying extra tax on alcohol and tobacco by reducing their consumption, the effect being improved health, thus reducing the cost for the NHS. However, we need to be judicious about this. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a drink from time to time, there is something deeply concern- ing about the binge drinking culture. The proposed fuel tax concerns me most: it is not nearly so easy to avoid paying it. Shifting either to a smaller or electric car can be expensive. Furthermore, the cost of fuel inputs into everything else in the economy: if a lorry transporting food to Tesco finds that its fuel costs have gone up, who picks up the bill? Being a rational company with shareholders, Tesco will do what it considers necessary to preserve its profits - it will raise its prices. Raising prices on food and other essential items disproportionately hits the poor. Furthermore, higher fuel taxes make it more difficult for people to get to work. incumbent on government This tax is extremely regressive. to devise a means to end this Rather than do this, the scam, which is why I agree government should be looking with recent proposals to tax at programmes including these companies on their sales a scrappage scheme, to move rather than their reported the country onto a lower-carbon profits. We can also look at individual path. If we cannot tax fuel, tax avoidance. A report then what can published on 1 June 2018 we tax? It is worth suggested that staffing levels noting that corporation at HMRC had fallen by 2,000 tax has since the EU Referendum. been cut; even so, Given that we need more officials many firms still to not only implement a shift their profits new customs regime as well as overseas, thus reducing combat avoidance, this seems the effective perverse. Most of us don’t tax rate to well have expensive accountants below the official who can tuck income into farflung rate. This leads to corners of the banking nonsensical situations system; none of us should be of companies able to do so. I fear however, that make millions that the government will pull or billions of pounds worth of the easiest levers; it would not sales in the United Kingdom shock me if they proposed another pleading poverty. Surely, before rise in VAT. I will continue looking to the average to remind them of whom person to pay any more, it is they will hurt.
If we cannot tax fuel, then what can we tax? Corporation tax has been cut; even so, many firms still shift their profits overseas, thus reducing the effective tax rate