UK Governmernt Tax Increases

Did you know that the UK Government is increasing the cost of your holidays by putting up taxes on airfares?

These rises will hit ordinary working families particularly hard as they struggle with the impact of the recession.

It seems strange that the government has assisted other industries to beat the recession, yet it is loading costs onto the travel sector making holidays both to and from the UK even more expensive when it should be doing all it can to stimulate travel for the benefit of the UK and other countries economies.

APD (Air Passenger Duty) was introduced as an ‘environmental’ tax, yet the Government has already doubled it and now plans to more than double it again by November 2010.

Why do we believe the tax is misguided, inappropriate and unfair?

APD is not an environmental tax.

The charge is based on the number of passengers, not actual emissions from an aircraft.

In other words those airlines who do their utmost to minimise their environmental impact will have to pay the same as those who operate older aircraft or do little to minimise their environmental impact.

Not only that, but bizarrely, the revenue that the tax raises does not actually go towards environmental projects.  An interesting concept for a so called ‘environmental’ tax.

Some longer flights will be hit less than shorter ones.

Travel to the Caribbean, and you will pay more APD than your friend flying to the west coast of the USA, Alaska or Hawaii. That does not make sense.

It only takes a few minutes to sign the petition, so please click on the following link (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/APDIncrease) which will take you on to the petition on the number 10 web site, and follow the on-screen instructions.  It only takes a couple of minutes to register and the more people that do, the more likely the Government will sit up and take notice.

I encourage you to let your friends and relatives know about this petition as the more people who sign up to it,  the more likely it is that the government will have to sit up and take notice.

Thanks for your support.