UK paying £19 billion 'too much' in green taxes
UK paying £19 billion 'too much' in green taxes
Thursday, 28, Aug 2008 06:36
The UK is paying £19 billion too much in green taxes, according to the Taxpayers' Alliance.
The group subtracted the costs of greenhouse gas emissions from the amount of green tax paid by the UK and found Britain paid £19.6 billion too much.
The emission figures came from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but when the group used the government's own estimates, it still found the UK was overtaxed by £7.9 billion.
"Green taxes are set far higher than is necessary to pay for our carbon footprint, which loads an unfair burden on to hard-pressed British families and businesses," said Matthew Sinclair, a policy analyst at the Taxpayers' Alliance.
"It's dishonest and unjust for politicians to wrap revenue raising tax hikes in a green banner."
But green activists have questioned the research, saying their calculations are "discredited".
"The Taxpayers' Alliance figures are seriously flawed because they are based on a discredited approach to calculating the cost of climate change – and in fact green taxes have fallen as a proportion of overall taxes since Labour came to power," said Dave Timms, Friends of the Earth's new economics campaigner.
"Green taxes are one of the key policies needed to prevent dangerous climate change that would cost the UK billions of pounds and ruin lives."
The Green party called on the government to make the effects of green taxes more obvious to working people.
"Tax should be about trying to change behaviour and not just about abstract revenue raising," said principal speaker Caroline Lucas.
"It's the government's fault that people have lost faith in green taxes. Their money goes into a black hole and they don't see the benefits.
"Greens would bring in measures like making free insulation available to everyone, which would dramatically reduce fuel bills for families, and reduce the amount they pay in green taxes as well."
But the Taxpayers' Alliance is standing by its research, which found the green tax burden to have risen from £22.7 billion in 2006/07 to £24.2 billion in 2007/08.
It also says the burden falls disproportionately on rural and suburban areas. Residents of Maldon, for example, pay £607 per person in green taxes, while residents of Camden, in London, pay £62, according to the IPCC estimates.