Man in a Shed: Why is no one calling to end VAT on gas and electricity ?

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Why is no one calling to end VAT on gas and electricity ?

So John Major is happy to gift #RedEd a break on his economic denial strategy, but no one mentions VAT on fuel.

Could this just perchance be something to do with the European Union ?

3 comments:

Quiet_Man said...: It's everything to do with the EU, you can reduce VAT, but once its on, you can't remove it. That plus government have never seen a tax they didn't like.; 5:41 am
Edward Spalton said...: Quiet Man is quite right.

I recall the debate on VAT on domestic fuel very well.
The leaderships of both parties were committed to the EU and this measure was part of that. Yet Labour let Denis Skinner et al off the leash ("The evil Tories freezing the pensioners to death") and PROMISED to remove the tax if elected. Even I knew that was impossible and assumed it was a deliberate deceit. With benefit of hindsight, I think that they neither knew nor cared as long as they could make a good debating point.
Because the surrender of powers has been cumulative over years, most MPs probably don't know what they can no longer do. Their maximum time horizon is the life of a Parliament whilst that ole EU just keeps rolling along.; 10:22 pm
cosmic said...: Much the same reasons as they avoid a lot of other questions or talk around them, e.g. the green levies.

1. They quite like them whatever they find it convenient to say sometimes.

2. Doing anything of substance about it would anyway involve going against the EU, and they won't do that and won't even talk about the origin of the problem.; 11:20 pm

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