Tue 29 Oct 2019, 10:59 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Md Mamunul Islam, Bedford, Labour Party member
Often, we think we are helping by supporting certain cause without thinking proper cost and consequences of it. I will give two examples below. Often, we do that thinking we are doing best, feel responsibility or guilt and we must do it.
Most people will support the Climate change campaign and people like myself will go to protest to force government do more to tackle this very little-known climate change, something in opinions of some is simply air pollution not how portrayed in media. We wish to see more done for Green deal, but who is actually paying for it?
Government introduced a car tax system which is very low or no tax at all for new electric cars and providing various facilities to promote buying them, but how many Brits living in poverty can really afford a one of those expensive cars? Most hybrid low-emission vehicles or fully electric vehicles such as Tesla are not cheap and some are very new to the market which means you cannot really buy a cheap one. Most will agree that living in Britain, especially given the Tory cuts on public services and the cost of public services, particularly trains, it is essential to have a car for most families.
Many families living on foodbanks and others trying their best to make ends meet simply cannot afford an environmentally-friendly car, to take advantage of low tax or no tax. They can most probably afford an old car or a cheap car and those cars have huge taxes attached to them. Something can make a family struggle to pay, and a family bread-winner may have no other choice but to have vehicle to go to work or simply maintain family.
Does it not feel unfair that those who can afford to pay are allowed to drive tax free, but those struggling in society are asked to pay the most? Can we not have a fairer tax system? We can charge people road tax depending on their income, so if they have low income and own a car we can charge them less, but if an individual or family have a high income and own a vehicle that has high emissions they must pay higher.
