Taxi drivers to lose tax relief on fuel in the Autumn Statement 2016

I blame it all on the lazy greedy taxi drivers. They hoover up all the new cars at the showrooms and just push the price up for ordinary people like us.

I'm a full time student in my 10th year now and my partner is on the sick with caloryoverintakitis but we just want to better ourselves. It's hard for us to get proper jobs because we don't like getting up in the mornings.

We want to buy one of those big swanky 4x4 suv thingies but they cost about £50K! How can we ever afford that? We're destined to be car renters for ever unless we can get this first step on the ladder.

The dealer told me I'd need a 10% deposit. How can I save up that in this economic climate. I need my fags and booze because of the stress I'm under. And the sky sports and movies is essential if you sit at home on your ass all the time. We only go abroad once a year now and only do drugs at the weekend. The dealer told me I would be better off with one of those 'first' cars like a super mini. But it's like a rabbit hutch and so poorly put together. And what are we going to do when we start a family?

I found out the other day that Taxi drivers charge customers more than what their diesel costs them! Money grabbing Nazis. If I was a taxi driver I'd charge a nice fair rate that even poor people can afford. How else are non car owners supposed to get around?

A Treasury official was quoted saying "..... if the brakes aren't squealing then the taxi isn't working.........."

Reply to the comment left by "Roanch 21" at "12/11/2016 - 12:38":

Loved your comment Roanch.. Interviewed many 'passengers' just like that in eleven years as a landlord, most of whom I have not been prepared to carry in one of my 'taxis'.

It's just another step to eventually evening the playing field and simplifying the tax system, by defining all income from all businesses as profit. It will vastly simplify the ledgers and book keeping effort, and save businesses that overhead of employing an accountant, This system is just a stepping stone to the governments ultimate aim of replacing taxation on businesses with a business poll tax - ie. It's a business friendly idea, allowing the business owner to concentrate on his core business, by not having to keep accounts at all, HMRC will work out the tax for you with a simple look-up table with just two columns. The first column in alphabetical order of business type, and the second column, tax due each year. What could be simpler and what could be fairer?

I fear some actually believe this story...

On a serious note, I wonder what would happen if we got a petition going to propose

"A HALT TO POLITICIANS EXPENSES" and in the explanation we can ask why politicians are allowed to claim "expenses" on second homes, meals, transport and other such costs that many other (dare I use the word) 'workers' have to pay for out of their own pocket as part of carrying out their chosen business profession. We could suggest that they (the polliticians) might vote in favour of scrapping their allowances (which are in reality business expenses) in order to 'level the playing field'.

I also see that despite having two major landlord's groups, it is estimated that only 500,000 of us are members of either. This in turn leaves 1.3 million who are not. Surely, it is beholden to all of us to recommend these bodies (or indeed the proposed Landlord Union mentioned on this site) to any landlord/agent we know of, if only for the sake of unity and a louder voice. Then, with joined up thinking we can reach more and more landlords and perhaps as a by-product even negotiate a reduction in charges for membership too?

This site has some great contributors and most of us have benefitted in some way from membership but the 'views count' of the Section 24 post alone is more than the membership of both landlords associations ... we all need to spread the word. We only managed 60,000 signatures on the last petition - we must aim higher!

Finally, despite forwarding the Section 24 report to my MP (Caroline Dinenage - Gosport), she has responded by saying she "appreciates my concern and has forwarded my correspondence and the attached report to the minister concerned and will get back to me as soon as she hears back from him".

'Minster concerned' ... not very concerned I would think!

Keep up the great work team!

Steve B

Private Jets
What about private Jets? Surely they should be considered along with private ships or boats or launches whatever.
Second cars surely they should be on the hit list. Why on earth do you need 2 cars or more ? Why would you need a private jet? Or a helicopter? How can you call a chauferr a legitimate business expense when you can drive the thing yourself? Same as the pilot or captain. While we are looking into this why do Taxi drivers and ordinary folks like ourselves have to pay tax while cutting the lawn or trimming the hedges with our petrol driven equipment? As for ride on lawn mowers well don't get me started on that one, Lazy landlords and wealthy cab drivers can just use shears and manual lawn mowers to maintain their properties, wait a minute? Would that be considered tax avoidance or evasion? I am not sure. Taxed to cut your lawn. Taxed to watch TV
Taxed when you drive your car, die, sell anything, buy anything. My goodness I hope those with " the knowledge" under their belts are taking note ...

This is hilarious - I have only just got round to reading it as I did not realise it was going to be a spoof.

But I suspect that to truly compare a landlord to a taxi driver the landlord would have to be in house 24 hours a day, working every minute a tenant is in the property and starting random and pointless conversations.

Unfortunately I have a real job as well as being a landlord and my tenants do not want me getting under their feet 🙂

And I don't want to work 16 hours a day, living on a diet of Proplus and Red Bull!

I understand that Uber drivers, now that they are to be considered to be employees, will be exempt from this as the cost of fuel is " wholly and exclusively and necessary" for their employment. Not only that but as employees using their own vehicles they can claim 45p per mile in mileage rates.

In a recent speech, delivered with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, former Prime Minister Baron Cammers Bullingdon re-amphasised the urgent need of his party to tackle the menace of taxi drivers, unaffiliated to party-donating corporations.

Having justified his stance by recalling a traumatising incident in which a taxi did not have sufficient room for his horse, Bullingdon added “I’m not posh you know”.

Gideon Bastard - former Chancellor of the Exchequer and ardent critic of the ability of taxi drivers and other low-medium income scum to deduct costs from their tax liability - was knighted Sir Oiksbane of the Round Table by Baron Bullingdon last week.

Reply to the comment left by "Barry Fitzpatrick" at "11/11/2016 - 07:41":

Is someone's putting LSD into the main water supply in Westminster?