What's new mulchcow? Woe, woe, woe
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THE Transport Secretary's proposal to allocate a margin between track costs and tax rates to cover "unquantifiable social and environmental costs, particularly for the heaviest lorries," has astonished the Road Haulage Association.
"If it is adopted," says the RHA, "the road transport industry could, and in the nature of things assuredly would, be treated as a milchcow for a Chancellor or official who might be seeking a method of raising extra taxes without the need to justify their imposition."
What's new, pussycat? When did anyone in government try to justify extra taxation? And when was the road transport industry not a milchcow? The RHA is right to be angry but not surprised.
The two per cent increase in electricity prices is another example of brazen revenueraising without even a hint of regret. If companies took the financial liberties that governments regard as normal practice, Britain would need at least a dozen new prisons to house the directors.