E&I still milking its cash cow
We are in a time of high interest rates, high inflation and a train loads of tax increases coming down the line causing a lot of heartache and tough times for many.
Hearing inflation figures of over 10% and rising, interest rates hitting a 40-year high and still expected to climb, you would expect any increase to be proportionate. Not with E&I.
1 January will see the emission tax on new vehicles and imported used go up by 100% in four of the six bands, and even an electric car gets a £50 charge. The motor industry received this last Friday, giving three weeks' notice until it is implemented.
A 100% increase – unbelievable. As I read the letter I looked back at the date but it wasn’t 1 April. E&I was serious.
The increases are:
Band 1 from £0 to £50
Band 2 from £150 to £185
Band 3 from £285 to £570
Band 4 from £420 to £840
Band 5 from £555 to £1,110
Band 6 from £730 to £1,500
How does any department justify an increase 10 times that of current inflation? (E&I didn’t need any States approval to increase them). Their president, writing on Twitter, said: ‘Guernsey is the easiest, least expensive place to own/run a car anywhere that treasury could find to compare to us’, so is this now policy? If they feel we are cheap, put the price up, hardly a way to justify an increase? That view has never been taken on fuel where Guernsey taxes it the most in the western world.
This term ‘cash cow’ came about three terms ago when E&I started the emission charge, and to this day proves that it still is to fund the subsidised bus service and all their vanity projects.
There is no bearing on reality with this increase and putting a full electric car even on the band at £50 shows where it's all going, as fuel duty income reduces due to the ‘electric’ age and fuel efficiencies come into play.
The reality is that an annual road tax will be back, which I accept is the only sustainable way as we enter the ‘electric’ age, especially as the ‘MOT’ commences in April 2024 and an annual record will be required, providing the 22p a litre of road tax is removed from fuel.
The media (as I write this) has made no mention of it, another stealth tax that didn’t creep up on us but smacked us directly in the wallet. 100% increase is headline news, wake up media.
E&I should rethink this in the current climate, make it proportionate and in line with RPI.
But this again smells of the easy option, and reminds me of something else – GST.
DAVE BEAUSIRE
Le Mont Saint Garage