OT New tax coming.

[harry]

I have often thought that. Electricity would still be relatively tax free though.

[harry]

Yes?

[harry]

And catch foreigners/non taxpayers driving on our roads

[John Williamson]

Only until it becomes popular and starts making a noticeable dent in the tax take from fossil fuels, then they will find a way to tax its use for transport. The government will be extremely reluctant to give up the revenue from petrol and diesel.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 19:36:14 on Fri, 9 Nov

2012, Bill Wright remarked:

How do you propose to tax the electricity used to charge electric cars? (More than it's taxed already, that is).

I suppose you could have a meter fitted to the car, and pay an electricity tax surcharge annually.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

These are the majority of OAPs requiring a complete change in the way things are done just to suit them?

Wouldn't it be better if they weren't living on a 'pathetic' pension? That is the root cause - and tinkering with things like VED only masks the real issues.

Other thing is it's unlikely they will be able to drive all their lives - so what happens then?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Unlike diesel etc which you can mark in some way to differentiate between that used for road vehicles and other uses, electricity can't.

The only way therefore is to tax actual road usage - perfectly practical these days.

[Mike Barnes]

Bill Wright :

Agreed.

But, stupidly IMO, they moved in the opposite direction by relating VED to emissions per km.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 10:00:06 on Sat, 10 Nov

2012, "Dave Plowman (News)" remarked:

They probably couldn't afford to save very much, on account of spending all that money travelling 16 miles to the nearest shop.

They either have to move somewhere closer to a shop, or maybe there will be an increase in mobile shops in the future, as even those in work will be hard pressed to afford to drive to the shops.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Who said anything about saving?

The dilemma is that either you expect people to look after themselves, or the state does it for them. Which means taxation. And not allowing individuals to make up their mind which parts of the 'welfare state' actually suit them.

[charles]

or get Tesco, etc, to deliver?

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 10:42:39 on Sat, 10 Nov

2012, "Dave Plowman (News)" remarked:

Saving is what you do to provide yourself with more than the state pension.

Part of the problem is that people often don't make good decisions. You could have people opt out of the NHS (on the grounds that "they've never had a day off sick in their life"), but 40 years later when they are diagnosed with cancer, they'll likely want to change their mind.

It's not an especially good decision to retire somewhere 16 miles from the nearest shop, for example (and I wonder how far away the nearest Pharmacy is). But that's the sort of thing we allow people to make their own mind up about, currently.

[Roland Perry]

In message , at 10:49:18 on Sat, 10 Nov 2012, charles remarked:

That's one form of mobile shop, assuming Tesco actually deliver to such out of the way places.

[Nightjar]

Generally it does. A tax that is fair to everybody is likely to produce less revenue than one that is unfair to some.

Someone who does 3,000 miles a year would probably be better off selling the car and using taxis.

It would also significantly increase the cost of many daily necessities, which would increase the RPI, which they don't want.

Colin Bignell

[polygonum]

Though we do seem to have quite a number of taxes which catch most ordinary mortals but are easily escaped by some - often those with the most reason to escape them. Which I think should be classified as being unfair to almost all.

[charles]

[Snip]

[Snip]

some people don't move when they retire. But, the village shop has closed, and the bus route got shut down a few years ago, etc.

[Nightjar]

I've seen Ocado vans in some very out of the way places.

Colin Bignell

[damduck-egg]

Tesco, etc don't deliver everywhere. if there are not enough possible customers in an area at a distance from the depot then the service isn't available. And sometimes an elderly single person would struggle to purchase enough to reach the sum for a minimum order anyway. There are sometimes ways to partly solve the problems. My Mother was about a mile outside a stores boundary so shares an order with a friend who is in it. Happy to drive a couple of miles rather than 11 or so to a large store. Since then the boundary has moved so she is in it but sometimes doesn't need a large order. Mobile shops as in the grocer in a van may come back sometime but I think that could be a slow process the ones from my childhood being run by the village baker, butcher all of whom have long gone. Maybe Amazon or similar will start an order system for food parcels, Internet shopping looks to be a fairly fuel efficient way of getting goods. The various vans go down this village road daily almost to a time schedule and unless I need something right away it can save quite a lot of fuel by getting things delivered.

Does depend on people being computer literate though which many of the present elderly will not be,and of those who are and will be in the future they may not be once the senility problems of ageing happen.

G.Harman

[S Viemeister]

Tesco doesn't deliver everywhere. They certainly don't, in my area. Luckily the local PO/shop does.

[S Viemeister]

I get a lot of non-perishables from Amazon - flour, pasta, etc.