Pickles Posted October 9, 2014 Share Posted October 9, 2014 I am trying to get my head around this. Sego has apparently announced that they will not be going ahead with the HGV ecotaxe/transit tax, following yet more demonstrations. At the same time, the French-based transport companies whinge about not having a level playing field with foreign-registered vehicles which don't pay French taxes, but yet use French infrastructure and compete for cabotage as well as transitting the country.Now, in Austria and Germany (and elsewhere) there are charging systems that apply to all goods vehicles, whatever their nationality, effectively favouring those local companies that do a significant part of their work within the country. Why doesn't France (and the UK for that matter, but at least France has the infrastructure in place) adopt such a system? The additional costs to French-based vehicles could easily be offset in a "non-officially-discriminatory" way. So why aren't the hauliers clamouring for such a system to be put in place? What am I missing please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Racerbear02 Posted October 11, 2014 Share Posted October 11, 2014 The French system (s) was / were to apply to all over 3.5 ton vehicle regardless of nationality. That would have levelled the playing field in respect of foreign vehicles but would have cost the local hauliers a huge amount of money, and who would have ended up paying for that do you think?. For sure after an initial reduction in mileage caused by the shock effect, it would have returned quickly to current levels and someone would have had to find the projected 500 million the government was expecting, again guess who would have been the end payers??There is now talk of hitting the autoroute companies profits to make up the shortfall, what will happen then do you think? In Germany, the charges apply for vehicles over 12 ton, not sure about Austria, so it does favour local, smaller truck using deliveries as compared to what had been proposed here. If the local truckers were given any form of rebate, surely that would be classed by the EU as the French subsidising the locals against the foreigners, and thereby wrong?I am afraid that it is just another example of the French government getting things hopelessly wrong :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pickles Posted October 11, 2014 Author Share Posted October 11, 2014 [quote user="Racerbear02"]The French system (s) was / were to apply to all over 3.5 ton vehicle regardless of nationality. That would have levelled the playing field in respect of foreign vehicles but would have cost the local hauliers a huge amount of money, and who would have ended up paying for that do you think?. For sure after an initial reduction in mileage caused by the shock effect, it would have returned quickly to current levels and someone would have had to find the projected 500 million the government was expecting, again guess who would have been the end payers??There is now talk of hitting the autoroute companies profits to make up the shortfall, what will happen then do you think? In Germany, the charges apply for vehicles over 12 ton, not sure about Austria, so it does favour local, smaller truck using deliveries as compared to what had been proposed here. If the local truckers were given any form of rebate, surely that would be classed by the EU as the French subsidising the locals against the foreigners, and thereby wrong?I am afraid that it is just another example of the French government getting things hopelessly wrong :([/quote]The way that it could have/should have been done was to reduce another tax that did not apply to foreign-registered companies, which would therefore have made the scheme tax-neutral to the locals whilst staying within EU competition rules. I believe that there are other goods-vehicle-related taxes or charges that could have been reduced or abolished. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pitway Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 With the cost of this complete shambles of an idea projected to be the region of 2 billion euros I wonder how is going to eventually foot that bill? [URL=http://www.sherv.net/][IMG]http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/hand-gestures/scratching-head-smiley-emoticon.gif[/IMG][/URL] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 pitway, head scratching?[:D]............ we all know who will foot the bill.[Www] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Théière Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 A fair chunk of it seems to have been levied/arranged/cooked up and handed to Mr Cameron to pay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
halfblind Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 [quote user="Théière"]A fair chunk of it seems to have been levied/arranged/cooked up and handed to Mr Cameron to pay.[/quote]Tsk! Tsk! Someone has been reading (and believing) the Daily Mail. Shame on you !And to think that a Tory from Eton would pay anything out of his pocket - heresy ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Hmmm, is Cameron really involved in the french ecotaxe and the red bonnets? I think that the bonnets rouges that have been at the manif's in Brittany will be surprised, as am I, to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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