From the BBC:
The European Commission is planning an EU-wide minimum tax on carbon as part of the EU's green energy agenda - but the UK opposes such a move. The minimum tax would apply to fuel, natural gas and coal. The EU's new Taxation Commissioner, Algirdas Semeta, is working to revise the EU's existing Energy Taxation Directive, his spokeswoman said...
The tax was set at 17 euros (£15) per tonne of emitted carbon dioxide (CO2)...
OK, the calculations for the impact this would have on electricity or gas prices would be tortuous, so let's just look at petrol. Using one litre of petrol creates about 2.7 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide. £15 per tonne = 1.5 pence per kilogramme, 2.7 times 1.5 pence = 4 pence per litre, so the tax on one litre of petrol would be 4 pence.
UK petrol duties are just about the highest in Europe at 54 pence per litre, add on the VAT which is another 20 pence or so per litre, gives us total taxes of 74 pence.
Seeing as the UK government has more or less free hand in setting petrol duty rates (but cannot reduce the VAT to less than 15% until we leave the EU), isn't this just reinventing the wheel? They could quite happily fall into line and introduce the 4 pence carbon dioxide tax while cutting ordinary petrol duty to 50 pence a litre and nobody would notice the difference.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
I don't get this one either
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11 comments:
Cut petrol duty???
What are you smokin' boy?!!
It's more than just a minimum being proposed. It would be EU funds, not UK Govt.
So, either an additional 4 p or, if total kept the same, 4 p less for UK Treasury.
It is all academic really, by the time the EU and compliant UK governments have finished with us we will be no longer competitive and will have priced ourselves out of all markets and be just be another 3rd world country (what's the PC correct term for this I have forgotten?). The likes of China and India don't give a s*@t about carbon emissions and are laughing their way to prosperity because we do.
Antisthenes' point leads to something that must be part of any comprehensive (interim) solution, namely a CO2 tariff on imports
And a tariff against artificially low currency exchanges rates.
Antisthenes,
I think the term you seek is "developing nation".
I am in one right now.
One litre of petrol costs 20 dirhams. (10 pence).
One litre of water costs 50 dirhams. (25 pence).
20 cigarettes are dinar 1.20. (about 60 pence).
I find that I do not miss the excessive taxation of my own "developed" nation. I do not miss the 4.3 million CCTV cameras. The police armed to the eyeballs. The ever-encoaching government. The jobsworths and the lickspittles.
The downside?
I leave on the 14th. Back to....civilisation.
Be still my beating heart.
CR.
Typo alert: I meant encroaching.
Antisthenes, There are several - Socialist? EU member? Democratic? Fair, Equal, Multi?
I think it is optimistic to class us amongst the 3rd World however. See Ghandi, Western Civilisation.
Oh come on lads, of course it will be an additional tax, I was just being light-hearted. Which may well lead to higher import duties being imposed which will make us even worse off.
Taxing carbon is OK as long as the trees pay their whack. Cellulosic bastards!
It would work well if they cut VAT from the bill in neutral.
Also Lord Turner is up for protectionism too here:
http://gco2e.blogspot.com/2010/03/carbon-tax-is-protectionism-without-tax.html
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