Marine traders angry as duty on diesel returns to agenda
Wednesday 19th May 2010, 2:29PM BST.
The ex-German naval minesweeper Tubingen takes on 30,000 litres of fuel oil from Rubis tankers in St Peter Port yesterday. (Picture by Tony Rive, 0971937)
Minister Charles Parkinson yesterday confirmed his department was revisiting the subject.
Guernsey Marine Traders Association president David Norman, who is MD of Marine & General, said that taxing marine diesel would be a retrograde step that would damage the island.
‘Guernsey will lose far more than it will gain,’ he said.
‘The phrase “cutting off your nose in order to spite your face” springs to mind.
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Anybody that can afford to have a boat for pleasure should have to pay the same tax as for road fuel,why do the rich always think they should be exempt from tax?
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I. Le Page, maybe because boatowners, as far as I have ever seen, don’t drive their boats on the road. It ruins the antifoul paint. After all, all us rich boatowners might receive some abuse when we start clogging up the roads and carparks with our gin palaces, as no one on the island owns small boats to take the kids out in.
Yet again a very blinkered view on the world.
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Well thats just absolute rubbish. Typical comment from a jealous Guern.
Why oh why do people like you think that just because someone has a pleasure boat that they are rich.
Its a pathetic remark that shows just how ignorant you really are. Most boat owners have worked hard for their boats and it gives them great pleasure to be able to go to sea and enjoy what is after all an island surrounded by water that has for centuries given people pleasure.
Sure there are wealthy folk who own boats but then there are people who own manor houses, aeroplanes, fancy cars, homes abroad etc do they also come under your contempt?
I have worked my a… off for my boat and its comments like yours that get right up my nose. Go and get a life pal!
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Marty – Completely agree!
I.Le Page – you clearly have your head deep in the sand!
I love my boat; it is a hobby, getting out on the ocean is a very enjoyable way to spend my time, with kids, friends and family. I struggle damn hard to maintain it.
I have a funny feeling that any rise in fuel tax would not sustain extra cash for TandR, no doubt a rise would reduce the number of boat owners, which in turn will reduce the revenue being spent associated with boats,needless to say visiting boats would think twice about coming to the island spending money on fuel, dinners, visitors fees etc, I have an funny feeling the revenue which stems from the boating industry will take a big hit, leaving less takings available to TandR.
I think TandR need to review this option and look at industries which are not so fragile.
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Obviously, as a private boat owner, I too think I.Le page is an idiot.
But I’ve got a question for I.Le page. Tell me, what infrastructure will tax on marine fuel pay for? Not the harbours or moorings, that’s covered in our mooring fees. Not roads or car parks – that’s simply not equitable – it’s what your road tax is for!! I’m not aware of any essential maintenance that needs to be completed on the Little Russell? What an idiotic comment. Can we tax stupid comments on internet forums?
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Yet again the greedy and clueless politicians on this island are trying to make yet more money from the overtaxed population and spoil what little enjoyment we have left, maybe if they stopped flying round the world on their junkets all the time, they would be able to live within their budgets, the only thing that Trott and co are interested in and helping are their cronies in the finance industry, leave marine fuel alone.
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Come on then mr Parkinson, lets see you go the whole hog, and put duty on aviation fuel as well!!
No chance of that, eh, because you havent got the guts to try it on with someone like flybe, aircraft dont go on the roads, just like boats dont, but you just want to nail another nail in the coffin lid of the guernseymans way of live.
did you not say, a few days ago, that the states should not impose more taxes on the islanders until the states got themselves in order regarding overspends??? How long did that last, eh ?? i reckon you should look back and remember what you said, before opening your mouth again, short memory you seem to have there!!
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Pathetic Government, whistle our money into the wind then come up with yet another way to get their hands on some more of it!
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Here are some facts to ponder on.In Jersey fuel duty has always been levied on road going vehicles, with farm plant exempt, so planes private and commercial, houses, boats and non road going plant have to date remained duty free.In jersey we have gst at 3% and our harbours charge a fortune to discharge tankers a form of hidden tax. However as we drive our cars round with our tanks full of taxed fuel, look what we get ,well kept roads, police ,ambulances, fire service ,what would the boat owner get in return for levying duty on marine fuel.The truth is that not all boat owners are mega rich, and if this tax is levied it will devastate the marine industry ,restaurants will notice a slow up and the bustle of your town marina will be a distant memory, this is also going to be a jersey problem soon. Steve
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Well said both Vee and Marty what an extremely narrow minded man
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The tax has to come from somewhere,suppose boat owners would prefer they have GST like in Jersey?So that way the poorest people get hit hardest.Or maybe the States should remove the cap on income tax and bring in a higher rate of tax for those on incomes over 30k a year?
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While the island scrabbles around for extra revenue the real scams such as property ‘sales’ by share transfer are ignored. The island could gain a good few million a year if this were closed.
If you buy a house in Guernsey be you rich man poor man beggar man thief you should not be able to avoid document duty by setting up or transferring through a paper ‘company’.
And before anyone tells me it’s a legitimate way of transferring property and that ‘anyone can do it’. If anyone did it, it would be closed in an instant.
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Neil is right about share transfer tax losses
Using Ozanne’s excellent Document Duty calculator it can be seen that £30,000 tax is lost for every £1,000,000 property which is share transferred rather than conveyed
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My hunch is that the purpose of this is to place the same duty on marine diesel as marine petrol.
At the moment that situation is grossly unfair to those boaters who are petrol powered (me!).
Even the States would find it difficult to tax all marine fuels which included the road tax element.
However – beware the exemptions if the above comes to pass. Registered fishing boats presumably, lifeboat (fair enough), other commercial operators like the inter island boats – hmmm. I can sense another mess coning along.
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Gilthead. If the levy comes in GU licenced boats would need to be exempt. If not it would kill what’s left of the fishing fleet over night.
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Interesting point on Doc Duty, is Parkinsons forthcomming property purchase done in a company?
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Neil Inder – why should GU registered boats be exempt?
Taxi drivers aren’t. And some GU registered boats have petrol engines. But I take your point.
As I said it will be a mess…
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It is significant that the news of the possibility of marine fuel costing more here was reported in the UK journal Motor Boat Monthly last Tuesday.
Cheap fuel is a magnet for visiting boats, and we not only get the profit from the fuel, but their restaurant meals, marina fees, and other purchases and use of marine services.
That is the real point of the arguments against increasing the prices.
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Gilthead
The following vehicles can use red diesel:
• agricultural vehicles, inc tractors used for certain purposes
• construction machinery, equipment or plant
• certain lifting and handling vehicles
• road construction, maintenance and clearance vehicles
Taxi drivers know they have a fare/wage when they get to their destination; the fleet ‘hopes’ there is a fare in its gear. They could, arguably, come under a similiar exemption as ‘agricultural vehicles’.
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I use marine fuel in my vehicle, you just tow your boat to the forecourt, fill up the petrol tanks for the boat. Then pour it into your car, might be worth adding some fuel dye to it though, pesky police might catch you!
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We shouldn’t be adding duty to diesel, we should be removing it from petrol!
What is the duty for…don’t boat owners (rich or otherwise) already pay towards their moorings and the island’s leisure craft and fishing infrastructure plus a load of other services and goods which provide income and employment for the island?
Boat owners already subsidise the buses and the roads, every time they drive to the marina, so, in effect, they are paying duty twice, for a service they use once.
It’s just another way for the States to put their hand in your pocket to pay for their mismanagement of the tax pot…after years of careful and diligent stewardship we’ve inherited a bunch of politicians who can’t stand up to their civil servants (or their more vocal parishioners)so they just keep taxing and spending because it’s easier than managing the runaway gravy train at Frossard house etc
How about this…they fix the fishing limit problem, regain our 12 miles, kick out the foreign trawlers from local waters and then maybe we can do a deal?
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Neil – the property owning company point is a non-starter. what you propose would require a fundamental revision of the corporate tax principles and would have much wider implications. The UK tries its best to stop SDLT saving schemes and even then they do not simply try to impose SDLT on companies that own properties – sledgehammers and nuts come to mind.
Yes, anyone can set up a company to own a property, and we should have anti-avoidance provisions like those in the UK (we may already do, I don’t know). However, the real reason why most people do not do it is because it drastically reduces the potential buyers for your property – not many people are willing to take the risk of buying a company that may have undisclosed liabilities instead of buying a property which can be touched. Therefore it is only worth doing if the duty saving is huge.
But really, £30k on every £1m property? How many properties change hands via the company route each year? We are probably talking £1m duty max, which is a drop in the ocean compared to the negative consequences of a drastic change to the way companies are taxed.
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TL
I don’t buy that at all. It’s not beyond the wit of Guernsey to ensure that every domestic house, when sold or transferred pays the due document duty. You buy a house in Guernsey, you pay the duty. What’s so complicated about that principal?
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I’m expecting to be shot down in flames for this post but I don’t think it would unreasonable to levy a small amount of tax on marine diesel for pleasure boat use, as a motorsport competitor I have to pay full road rate fuel duty on my petrol regardless of the fact that most of my events don’t even use the public highway, why should (some) pleasure boaters be exempt?
Both motorsport and boating are leisure pursuits.
It is also rather unfair that petrol boat owners are paying tax on their fuel whilst diesel is duty free.
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TL
I believe Alderney have cracked the company transfer dodge.
According to the Bell & Co Estate Agency website all property transactions including those by company transfer or leasehold transfer are subject to a 3% tax
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Ray – that is interesting, but I guess that Alderney does not have companies that act as local property portfolio companies so they have less to worry about as far as knock-on consequences are concerned.
If it really was that simple, with no negative consequences, HMRC would have done it years ago.
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First road tax now marine what next, who is thinking this, the states are trying to get every last penny out of us to pay for there big mistakes and the local people are just letting them . And as for I Le Page what planet are you on i am a fisherman and just making ends meet and i mean just. Tax on marine will finish me off. charles parkinson use your brain and find money from some where else.
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@kevin
Roads need maintenance, and this has to be paid for. Tax on fuel to pay for this is a reasonable attempt at a ‘fair tax’ to pay for the maintenance, as the more frequent users pay more.
Exactly what is fair about making boat users pay for road maintenance? Answer: Nothing is fair about it.
More precise answer. It almost certainly wouldn’t even be used for road maintenance, but to plug various fiscal (or should that be farcical) holes left by equal measures of incompetence, greed, ego and corruption.
As for your motor-sport, yes in principal that is unfair too when it occurs on off-road locations, but, it sounds like some locations are also on public roads, and I also doubt you have dedicated fueling stations, so the additional admin would be more complex and expensive, which would then have to be paid for…
With boats, there are dedicated filing stations only for marine use. Currently there are at least a dozen large boats per week that pass by Guernsey for a fueling stop. Even some of the larger Jersey boats come to Guernsey due to the savings.
What I would like to see is less incompetence, and less of the other waste of the already huge taxes already collected from us. Not sneakier and sneakier ways of extorting ever more money from us.
I was traveling on the Condor last week, sat near some girl who was boasting to her companions how she’d not worked for ten years having been signed off with so called mental health issues. She was surrounded by shopping bags from various clothes shops, and had just bought herself a vodka to celebrate collecting her Guernsey benefit and was now off to Jersey for the week to stay with friends.
I was wondering why my Social Security bill went up from £2,500 to £10,000. Good to see it isn’t being wasted…
-Najinsky
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Najinsky said: “Roads need maintenance, and this has to be paid for. Tax on fuel to pay for this is a reasonable attempt at a ‘fair tax’ to pay for the maintenance, as the more frequent users pay more.”
While I agree with most of Najinsky’s posting, the above statement is questionable in the context of road maintenance. It is, I believe, a fact that wear and tear on roads increases very, very, strongly with the weight of the vehicle. I have seen it stated that it proportional to the fourteenth power of the weight of the vehicle. Thus, for example, a vehicle double the weight of another does about 16,000 times as much damage.
Thus a tax on fuel is a very unfair method of paying for road maintenance.
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Najinsky,
Is the difference in price between duty free marine petrol and road petrol only equivalent to what has been added when motor tax was abolished?
You are probably correct in saying duty on fuel is basically a stealth tax, tell me why I should be paying extra tax on fuel to use for my hobby whilst pleasure boaters get theirs at a reduced rate.
Can I just sign off by saying (slightly tongue-in-cheek!)that if you are paying £10K a year in Social Insurance a few pence per litre on marine petrol probably wouldn’t hurt you too much!
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David,
Actually, the rule of thumb is it’s the fourth power of the axle weight – so a vehicle with twice the weight (and the same number of axles) as another causes 16 times as much wear. Taken at face value, this would mean that if you take an 8,000kg Sunseeker from Town to the Bridge (on a two-axle trailer), that’s going to cause the same wear to the road as driving a 1,000kg car 4000 times over the same route.
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Thanks John.
My memory of that has obviously faded over the 40 or so years since I came across some news item from the Road Research Laboratory.
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Of course there should be no duty on marine diesel. There is no road maintenance, the consequence may well be less business coming to guernsey and thus revenue from other services and the island would become less competitive.
The flip side is that the revenue would be negligible at best, and the administrative cost will probably exceed the revenue anyway.
If the states need the money they should first look to reduce what hey spend!
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I’ve got no particular stance re marine duty but surely it is a fallacy to argue that there is no road maintenance?
Ok, no-one maintains the water, but someone has to pay for the maintenance of the harbours and the provision of the harbourmaster etc. There is still an infrastructure to marine transport that has to be funded somehow.
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Perhaps I missed it but I haven’t seen any reference to comparative fuel consumption.
When time, tide and finances allow, I take my boat out for a couple of hours gentle puttering. The twin petrol engines burn a total of 60 litres, resulting in a duty payment (current rate) of £13. That’s the same duty payment I pay for a whole month of driving my car.
Doesn’t seem quite right, does it?
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60 litres of fuel for a couple of hours of gentle puttering – for many people that is the same fuel usage as for a whole month of using their car!
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