On 13 Jul 2006 02:36:05 -0700, "John B" wrote:

Greg Hennessy wrote:
Reported last night that Ken proposes to charge £25 a day for the most
polluting cars.


Thinly disguised class warfare to divert away from other more pressing
matters.

Voluntary progressive taxation is not the same as class warfare.

It's neither voluntary or progressive.


Even more unlikely. Yummy mummies driving 'Chelsea tractors' in the zone,
are not going to be inconvenienced in the slightest.

True. However, the fact that they'll contribute an extra £650-ish each
a year to TfL coffers is no bad thing - it partially addresses the
outrageous anomaly that Council Tax stops at Band H...

A ridiculous premise.
--
If you want venality, if you want ignorance, if you want drunkenness,
and facility for being intimidated; or if, on the other hand, you
want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent people, where do you look
Do you go to the top or to the bottom?

On 13 Jul 2006 08:45:04 -0700, "Kev" wrote:



It seems a bit hypocritical of mayor Ken to do this. If he is so anti
pollution why is he bringing the Olympics to London.

Quite.

Does anybody know
how much extra carbon the construction and the games will pump into the
atmosphere

Far less than the 300 odd coal fired power stations the Chinese are
building. Something which demonstrates the thinly disguised lie behind UK
efforts to allegedly reduce global warming.
--
If you want venality, if you want ignorance, if you want drunkenness,
and facility for being intimidated; or if, on the other hand, you
want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent people, where do you look
Do you go to the top or to the bottom?

On 13 Jul 2006 14:39:39 -0700, " wrote:


Greg Hennessy wrote:
On 13 Jul 2006 02:36:05 -0700, "John B" wrote:

Greg Hennessy wrote:
Reported last night that Ken proposes to charge £25 a day for the most
polluting cars.


Thinly disguised class warfare to divert away from other more pressing
matters.

Voluntary progressive taxation is not the same as class warfare.

It's neither voluntary or progressive.

Of course it's voluntary: if you don' want to pay the higher charge,
get a smaller car.

About as practical as telling someone to get a smaller house if they don't
want to end up paying more council tax.


"Progressive", I admit, is a matter of debate.


Even more unlikely. Yummy mummies driving 'Chelsea tractors' in the zone,
are not going to be inconvenienced in the slightest.

True. However, the fact that they'll contribute an extra £650-ish each
a year to TfL coffers is no bad thing - it partially addresses the
outrageous anomaly that Council Tax stops at Band H...

A ridiculous premise.

Why?



Because what is being compared is not even remotely connected. You cannot
claim that most if not all 4x4 drivers live in band H houses and are
allegedly underpaying council tax as a consequence.

Why should someone driving a small 4x4 pay more to use the road than
someone driving a heavier conventional car taking up more road space.


greg

--
If you want venality, if you want ignorance, if you want drunkenness,
and facility for being intimidated; or if, on the other hand, you
want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent people, where do you look
Do you go to the top or to the bottom?

Greg Hennessy ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

Of course it's voluntary: if you don' want to pay the higher charge,
get a smaller car.

About as practical as telling someone to get a smaller house if they
don't want to end up paying more council tax.

And just as true.

Greg Hennessy ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

Why should someone driving a small 4x4 pay more to use the road than
someone driving a heavier conventional car taking up more road space.

sigh

You don't quite get it, do you? It's not "4x4" - that's just lazy
journalism. It's based on the CO2 emissions. So if the "conventional car"
is over the threshold and the 4x4 under, then the "conventional car" driver
will pay the higher rate and the 4x4 driver won't.

Happy?

Quite what the hell Ken proposes to do for vehicles without an official CO2
figure, I know not...

On 13 Jul 2006 22:35:16 GMT, Adrian wrote:

Greg Hennessy ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

Why should someone driving a small 4x4 pay more to use the road than
someone driving a heavier conventional car taking up more road space.

sigh

You don't quite get it, do you? It's not "4x4" - that's just lazy
journalism. It's based on the CO2 emissions. So if the "conventional car"
is over the threshold and the 4x4 under, then the "conventional car" driver
will pay the higher rate and the 4x4 driver won't.

Happy?

Quite what the hell Ken proposes to do for vehicles without an official CO2
figure, I know not...

Charge them £50.

--
James Farrar
. @gmail.com

wrote:
Neil Williams wrote:
John B wrote:

True. However, the fact that they'll contribute an extra £650-ish each
a year to TfL coffers is no bad thing - it partially addresses the
outrageous anomaly that Council Tax stops at Band H...

Why is that an outrageous anomaly? Such people don't throw away
substantially more rubbish, or use more other council services, than
those in lower bands.

If you want a local income tax you may as well do it properly, that
said.

Neil, your argument against banding is intellectually correct: a Band A
property does not inherently require less Council services than a Band
H property. That being so, why should there be any distinction based on
property value?

Taxing land value is desirable because otherwise the price of land would
just increase more. I can't think of a good reason to tax the value of
the buildings, but ISTR council tax assessment for houses in London is
based on footprint rather than value.

Moreover, why should there be a distinction based upon earnings either?
Does a high-earner necessarily use more Council services than a
low-earner?

No. Of course, when a question includes "necessarily", the answer is
nearly always "no", but in this case I doubt there's even a correlation.

--
Aidan Stanger
http://www.bettercrossrail.co.uk

James Farrar ) gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

Quite what the hell Ken proposes to do for vehicles without an
official CO2 figure, I know not...

Charge them £50.

So an economical, lower-than-average emission vehicle should be charged far
more? Why?

Neil Williams wrote:
True. However, the fact that they'll contribute an extra £650-ish each
a year to TfL coffers is no bad thing - it partially addresses the
outrageous anomaly that Council Tax stops at Band H...

Why is that an outrageous anomaly? Such people don't throw away
substantially more rubbish, or use more other council services, than
those in lower bands.

If you want a local income tax you may as well do it properly, that
said.


Disagree.

Income and wealth are both measures of 'richness', and all forms of
wealth accumulation other than housing are already taxed[*]. Ideally,
I'd levy CGT on house value increases in the same way that it applies
to all other investments, but assuming that that's politically
unacceptable then having some kind of housing wealth-based taxation
system is a reasonable substitute.

And given that the system currently works in a tiered fashion, as Marc
says elsewhere, the fact that in London the very rich have to pay the
same as the moderately well-off is silly.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

John B ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying :

Ideally, I'd levy CGT on house value increases in the same way that it
applies to all other investments

wince
I can certainly see - and don't necessarily disagree with - the concept,
but... ouch...

£8,800/year tax free, 20% on anything above that or 40% for higher rate tax
payers.

So - a not completely atypical example...
You bought your house 10 years ago for £150,000. It's now worth £400,000.
That's £250,000 gain in value over 10 years, so £88,000 allowance.
£162,000 taxable gain.

You currently earn £35,000/year, so you're a higher rate taxpayer.

You come to sell your house.

But you just plain can't afford to because you're going to have to find 40%
of £162,000 - £64,800 - just to pay Gordon. And that's on top of all the
other costs of moving house. You can't take it out of the house sale
proceeds, because you've got to buy another house with them.