100 Not Out

Here is a list of over 150 Stealth taxes that Labour have introduced to fund it’s tax and spend policies, complete with the dates. Heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.


July 1997
01 • Mortgage Interest Tax Relief At Source (MIRAS) reduced from 15% to 10%
02 • Dividend Tax Credits for pension schemes abolished
03 • Income tax relief on health insurance abolished
04 • Insurance Premium Tax extended to some health insurance
05 • Road Fuel Tax escalator increased to 6%
06 • Vehicle Excise Duty increased
07 • Tobacco duty escalator increased to 5%
08 • Stamp Duty raised to 2%
09 • Carry back of Corporation Tax losses limited to 1 year
10 • Windfall tax on utilities

March 1998
11 • Tax relief for the married couple's allowance (MCA) cut to 10%
12 • Top rate of Insurance Premium Tax extended to travel insurance
13 • Exceptional increase in tobacco and alcohol duties14 • Duties on casinos and gaming machines raised15 • Road Fuel Tax escalator increase brought forward16 • Tax on company cars increased17 • Tax relief on foreign earnings abolished18 • Tax concessions for certain professions abolished19 • Capital gains tax imposed on certain non-residents
20 • Restriction of Capital Gains Tax relief on reinvestment
21 • Corporation tax payments on account brought forward
22 • Stamp duty increased again
23 • Certain hydrocarbon duties increased
24 • Additional diesel duties introduced
25 • Landfill Tax increased
26 • Double tax credits on certain dividends restricted

March 1999
27 • National Insurance Contributions earning limit raised
28 • NI Contributions for self-employed increased
29 • Tax relief of Married Couple's Allowance abolished
30 • MIRAS abolished
31 • Self-employed contractors to pay NI and income tax as if employees
32 • Company car business mileage discount limited
33 • Double escalator on tobacco duties
34 • Insurance Premium Tax increased to 5%
35 • Vocational training relief abolished
36 • Employer NI Contribution base broadened to include all benefits in kind
37 • VAT on some banking services increased
38 • Tax on reverse premiums paid to tenants by landlords introduced
39 • Duty on domestic fuel oils up
40 • Vehicle Excise Duty for lorries increased
41 • Landfill tax escalator introduced
42 • Stamp Duty rates raised again to 2.5/3.5%

March 2000
43 • Tobacco duties increased above inflation
44 • Stamp duty raised for 4th time, scope of duty extended
45 • Extra taxation of life assurance companies
46 • Rules on tax havens tightened up
47 • Company car taxes raised

April 2002
48 • Personal tax allowances frozen
49 • National Insurance threshold frozen
50 • NI Contributions for employers raised51 • NI Contributions for employees raised [Class 1 up 1%]
52 • NI Contributions for self-employed raised
53 • North Sea taxation increased
54 • Duty on some alcoholic drinks raised
55 • Stamp duty thresholds frozen
56 • Tax relief on investment in film industry restricted
57 • Rules on corporate debt tightened
58 • Nil-rate threshold for inheritance tax raised by less than the rate of inflation

April 2003
59 • VAT imposed on electronically supplied services
60 • Domestic staff on £89/week to pay NI & income tax, employers to pay NI
61 • Betting duty increases
62 • Tax on red diesel and fuel oil increased
63 • Anti-tax haven rules tightened to cover more UK firms with Irish subsidiaries
64 • Vehicle excise duty raised
65 • Personal tax allowances frozen again

July, 2003
66 • £35 added to all fines and £3 added to the cost of a home insurance policy

September, 2003
67 • Price of petrol raised 7p per gallon (with the VAT)

October, 2003
68 • Up to 8 times increase in the stamp duty on leases for retail premises
69 • Airport Tax doubled

December, 2003
70 • 40% extra Council Tax on second homes
Additional info : It has been pointed out that a number of councils gave an even bigger discount for second homes and the increase for some people can be 80%. Plus the usual 6-18% annual rise, depending on how bloated the council's operations have become. Exemptions may be granted if the second home owner (1) has to live somewhere because of his/her employment, (2) the dwelling comes with the job, or (3) there are special threat/security reasons involved. All of which excuses apply to 10, Downing Street, the home of a certain Mr. Gordon Brown

January, 2004
71 • £60 per day fine for late submission of self-assessment income tax forms
72 • Traffic wardens to receive powers to impose fines for a whole bunch of offences to keep poor people off the roads. The offences will include parking more than 19 inches from the kerb (£100) and dithering by people who are lost over, and who don't know whether to make a turn or keep straight on
73 • A 'Victims Fund' surcharge fine on everyone who passes through the courts. £5 for speeding up to £30 for murder.
74 • Legal Aid for the middle classes abolished

February, 2004
75 • £40 per week charge to middle-class parents for formerly free nursery places
76 • £200 per year charge to middle-class parents for places on formerly free school buses
77 • £250 per hour charge from the fire brigade for non-fire-related call-outs, e.g. clearing up after road accidents and rescuing pussy cats from trees

March, 2004
78 • £550 tax rise (at standard rate) for people using a company van or people-carrier out of work time79 • Council Tax will rise at least 7.4% next year (according to the Budget)
80 • The tax incentive for owner-operator small businesses to become companies abolished
81 • Tax on cross-border payments for goods and services between multi-divisional companies extended to transactions within the UK
82 • Tax on trusts up from 34% to 40%
83 • Duty on red diesel up 1p/litre above inflation (57% rise)
84 • Duty on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) used as fuel up 1p/litre above inflation (45% rise)85 • Personal allowances for taxpayers under 65 frozen
April 2004
86 • PEPs and ISAs containing shares lose their tax break on dividends and the annual ISA allowance cut by £2,000 to £5,000
87 • The 100% tax allowance for small businesses & self-employed on new computer/advanced telephone equipment cut to 50% for 2004/5 tax year
88 • Passports – in addition to costing twice as much as the present price of £42, the new 'biometric data' passports will be valid for half as long. They will have to be renewed every 5 years instead of every 10 years, which doubles the cost yet again.
89 • £100 per year 'lighthouse tax' on small boats over 8 metres long. Commercial shipping lines think they should pay £2.6 million per year towards the annual £73 million cost of maintaining lighthouses and navigational equipment.

May 2004
90 • Council Tax bills to rise a further £110 in the affected areas to pay for 'Two Jags' Prescott's regional assemblies

Accident Tax •

September 2004 Building on the success of the Vehicle Insurance Premium Tax, which raises £105 million per year, the government is planning to extend the idea to accidents in the workplace. The government hopes to raise a further £150 million per year from insurance companies when people are treated in NHS hospitals after accidents at work. Employers can expect their liability insurance premiums to rise by 5%. Some firms have already seen their premiums rise by 20-50% in 2003/4 thanks to the current compensation culture. The rate of business failure is expected to increase steeply when this new stealth tax is imposed.

Childcare @ School Tax • New Labour wants all schools to stay open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. by 2010 to allow mothers to work. The scheme has to be self-financing, so as a consequence, schools will have to charge for all out-of-hours activities, e.g. outings, sports coaching, and dance and music classes.

Computer Tax • (March 2006 Budget small print) Anyone who uses a computer at work for checking personal emails or private pottering on the internet, and anyone who uses a company PC or laptop at home, will be liable to pay the Computer Tax unless they can prove to the Revenue Dept. beyond a shadow of a doubt that the computer is used for work only and nothing else. A £2,000 computer bought after 2006/04/06 will cost employees in the higher income tax band £160 more per year, and the employer will have to pay an extra £51.20.

Congestion Charging • This scam raised a lot of cash in London and other big cities are wondering about cashing in.

June 2005 Congestion Charges for rush-hour trains.

Dental Tax 1 • Despite increasing National Insurance, which is supposed to pay for the Health Service, the government is forcing dentists out of the NHS system and obliging their customers to seek private treatment via a dental plan costing, typically, £19 per month. Dental Tax 2 • 2006/04/01 The cost of a dental checkup on the NHS rose threefold from £5.54 to £15.50. The cost of a filling went up fourfold to £42.40 and the price of a gold crown doubled to £189

Dividend Tax Credit • This allowance was abolished in 1997, reducing income to charities, pension funds and anyone living on income from dividends. Pension funds and non-taxpayera can no longer recover the tax credit on income from UK dividends. The effect has been described as compound interest in reverse as pension contributions must be increased to provide the same level of benefits.

Driving Licences • The cost of the driving test written test and the driving test itself have been increasing relentlessly, and now there is a charge for changing from a provisional licence to a full licence.

Driving Licence Photocard Tax : From 2008, driving licences will have to carry a photograph to comply with EU regulations. The government is offering 3 options:1. An extra charge of £3 for everyone, which is expected to rise to £10 very quickly;2. First-time drivers will pay for everyone and the cost of a driving licence will rise from £38 to £68; and3. The cost of a driving licence will rise to £45 and the cost of registering a new car will rise from £38 to £45.

Fines, More Widespread Use • Everything from motoring offences, anti-social behaviour, truancy and binge drinking is seen as a means of raising revenue by New Labour.

Fiscal Drag • Gordon Brown, seeking to fill the monstrous Black Hole which he has created in the nation's finances, is adjusting tax bands relative to an inflation rate which has been massaged down rather than the rate of increase of earnings. As a result, 3 million of the 28 million taxpayers are paying the 40% rate, an increase of around 10% since Gordon Brown became Chancellor. Fiscal drag includes Stamp Duty on property purchases, which is now at five times the 1997 level (£3,600 million compared to £675 million) and twice as many people are paying it as in 1997 (1,200,000 versus 607,000).

Inheritance Tax is another growth area. Thanks to the government's failure to allow for rising house prices, it has risen 75% since 1997 to £2.8billion per year. Income tax has doubled under New Labour due to Fiscal drag – Chancellor Brown's policy of not raising tax thresholds year by year. The amount of income tax for 2006/07 will reach 109% of the amount raised in 1996/97. [£145 billion compared to £69 billion]

Free Travel Tax • Gordon Brown announced free off-peak travel for people of 60 and older in the 2006 budget. But he failed to provide the cash to pay for the scheme. So Council Tax and/or fares had to go up to bridge the gap.

Home Information Pack Tax • July 2005 From 2007/06/01, New Labour will require home owners to give prospective buyers details of their dwelling's structural condition, title deeds, energy-use efficiency, planning consent status (if applicable), e.g. for a conservatory, and details of guarantees for central heating, double glazing, etc. Reports for the packs will be compiled by 7,500 home inspectors, who will join New Labour's vast army of public servants with jobs that make them indebted to the Labour party.

March 2006 The information in these packs will be 'stored electronically' and made available to inspectors looking for excuses to raise the Council Tax on homes which have been improved or repaired, and homes on which the owner has spent a lot of cash to keep them well maintained.
April 2006 Home Information Packs will also attract VAT at the full rate of 17.5% on top of the £1,000 cost in line with New Labour's disgraceful policy of applying taxes on top of taxes.
June 2006 The packs won't include information on: • subsidence risks; • flooding risks; • rights of access affecting security and the safety of children; and • land contamination.The main purpose of the HIP is to provide the Treasury with £111 million/year from VAT on the packs.

Identity Tax • After getting us used to Stealth Taxes, the government wants to give its customers Stealth ID cards by building personal data into passports and driving licences, which will cost at least £35 more than the current price as they will become multi-purpose documents. Anyone who doesn't drive and who isn't planning to go aboard will be required to buy a straight ID card for £35.

October/November 2004 The idea of adding biometric data to passports and driving licences to turn them into identity cards has been junked. The latest big idea to come out of the Home Office is a stand-alone biometric ID card. Everyone will have to have one, paying a Stealth Tax of £35, but no one will be obliged to carry it. So anyone wanting a passport in and after 2007 will have to pay £85 for a non-biometric passport, which will be valid for 5 years. The price includes the £35 Stealth Tax for a biometric ID card, which will be valid for 10 years. [See also Stealth Tax 88 above.] At present, a passport valid for 10 years costs £42. As a result of the changes and Stealth Taxes, travellers wanting the same deal will have to pay £135 for two 5-year passports plus a 10-year biometric ID card.

May 2005 : The government's first guess was £5.8 billion for the cost of the ID card scheme. A more realistic estimate is that the cost is on course for being 3 times as much at around £18 billion. And if the scheme has to be self-financing, the government will have to charge £300 per card! If the government chooses to conceal the true cost of the card by sneaking in taxpayers' money from another account, then card-holders can still expect to be ripped off. This year's guess for the cost of a card is £93, which is 20% up on the guess for 2004. So the likely price in 2008, when everyone applying for one of the new biometric passports will be obliged to get an ID card as well, is £160.

December 2005 : The price of a standard passport was raised from £42 to £51.

March 2006 : Identity cards may not be compulsory just yet, but anyone who applies for a passport in 2008, but chooses not to have an ID card as well, will still be charged £93. Up to 6 million people face being ripped off for an ID card which they don't want but have to pay for.

Additional facts :• The government expects ID cards to become compulsory in 2013. • People will have to go to a data collection centre at some central point and spend anything up to an hour being measured – plus time spent hanging around waiting to be measured. • Biometric ID cards will have to be renewed every 5 years as iris and facial scans will have to be updated to take account of changes in the owner's appearance. • The Home Office says that card readers will cost £250-750. A more realistic estimate of the cost is £3,0000-4,000 each. • Processing a card and its owner will take about a minute. So anyone at the back of a queue of 30 people will have to hang around for half an hour – assuming everything goes smoothly with the verification process for the other people in the queue.

May 2007 : The latest guestimate of the 10-year cost of the ID card scam has gone up by £840 million since last October to a new total of £5.75 billion. This guess excludes an additional £510 million on the Foreign Office budget to cover the cost of consular services associated with issuing ID cards abroad. The guestimate also excludes the cost of installing ID card readers at social security offices, at GP's surgeries for registering new patients, etc.The latest increase raised the estimated cost of an ID card by £12 to an eye-watering £105.
June 2007 : From October, the price of a standard passport will rise to £72 (up £6), the premium 'same day' service will cost £114 (up £6), the fast-track 'within a week' service will cost £97 (up £6) and a child's 5-year passport will cost £46 (up £1).

Licensing & Registration Fees • Thanks to New Labour's willingness to go along with any new red tape that the Eurocrats of Brussels dream up, more and more people are having to pay a registration fee for being allowed to do their job – doormen, electricians and school dinner ladies to name but a few. And homeowners, who allow a job to be done by someone who isn't licensed to carry out electrical work in the home, are liable to be fined. Certification costs £ 877.50 and there is an annual renewal fee of £405.38.

As usual, the consumer gets a bigger bill as someone has to pay for all the red tape. Further, the cost of registering care homes, and the enforcement of new regulations, have both increased by huge amounts. As a result, many care homes have simply gone out of business and the rest are having to charge much larger fees.

Even further, pubs, clubs, restaurants, takeaway shops which serve food after 11 p.m., concert halls, village halls and any venue which holds events at which drinks are served are all required to renew their licence this year because New Labour changed the rules in 2003/4. And as this process involves a lot wrestling with jargon-filled forms, and time is running out for the August 2005 deadline for filing applications, there's a shambles in the making. Anyone who misses the August deadline will find things get a whole lot more complicated for the October filing date, and the government will require them to jump through a lot more hoops. Worse, as processing the forms involves a lot of work, councils will have to shove up their Council Tax to pay for it..

Manure Recycling Tax • Riding stables and other businesses using horses have to buy a licence to make compost (used as fertiliser) from horse manure. And from 2005/07/01, businesses doing so will have to spend thousands of pounds on installing a leakproof concrete flooring beneath muck heaps with a sealed holding tank for the liquid which runs off.

So, does New Labour Do Anything different from History to keep Britain Better?
And hows your tax bill these days?