Sep 2008 12

Taxes, taxes everywhere, but not a drop to drink2

Yes, as a response to concerns about possible water shortages and the potential unaffordability of water in future, the EU is threatening to reach for the tax laws and tax water!

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas has apparently come up with the brainwave to "ensure people pay for what they use". Perhaps someone should explain water bills to him…

The EU’s love of complex regulation has already managed to sneak in, showing that no idea is so idiotic that you can’t embellish it even further, as Stavros has another idea to really drive the measures home.

"if someone who lives near the sea has a swimming pool, then they will have to pay more. It is only logical to tax more heavily those who can afford to have a swimming pool, when they could just as easily swim in the sea"

Tynemouth_storm Even if you leave to one side the bizarre complexities of such a scheme and the enforcement impossibilities, Stavros has apparently failed to realise that the sea where he grew up, in Greece, is quite a lot more swimmable than that where I did (see the beautiful beach near my parents home pictured, right, this August). If he wants to try the Boxing Day dip at Seaton Carew, he’s welcome…

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  • Hardeep_Singh

    Why would you wish to live within the EU with this kind of prevailing mindset? The US seems a far better prospect where markets and to a certain extent the populus still drive the nation rather than exhbitions of politcal stupidity like this. Tax water does this baffoon not realise that it’s a human right to have access to water. The same human rights shoved in our faces by the EU yet their own proposals are exempt from this scrutiny? I could have come out with a better policy than this, politcians truly are inept, incompetent and useless that’s why they go into politics because they can’t hack it in the real world.
    As for having a swimming pool by the sea that comes down to market forces where people personally elect to spend their hard earned money knowing that there’s a beach nearby. That’s the overriding factor of how I spend my money “oh I need a running kit, but wait Hardeep you already have one besides the new one will cost you money you can ill afford”… No mention of taxation there but you will witness common sense, logic, personal responsibility and the freedom to make my own decisions and have to live with them.
    Seeing that the circus has left town and left him behind who is this clown answerable to…? So are they a dictatorship telling us nay forcing us to do what they order? I think not they’re simple communists that don’t have the guts to admit who they are. I have no respect for you Sir and there’s nothing lower in life than a man without respect.

  • http://www.typepad.com/t/track/2443942/28082000 Barbara Lockwood

    Sorry can’t stand Brown and his croonies any longer this week. This government is so out of touch with it’s country, their only concern is for the Hirerachy and holding on to Bonuses, Hand shakes and forcing the middle and lower incomes to fund higher taxes
    in the near future,knowing perfectly well our problems are of government making, allowing Banks to work in their own sordid way.
    I predict todays speech by Brown will completely ignore his seniors and the 11 years pension increases he has denied us;
    The deliberate despicable attitude of North Norfolk deciding to employ Bailiffs this week to harass CT defaulters was certainly chosen knowing not one MP would be available for help,they are all in Manchester.
    F.A.C.T.-Barbara