No mercy as Brown stays with fuel escalator policy
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• Despite talking at the start of the Budget about championing the needs of small businesses, Chancellor Gordon Brown confirmed hauliers' worst fears and added 5p/lit to ultra-low-sulphur diesel and just over 6p/ft to norma.l diesel duty.
After announcing a raft of measures to help business overall, Brown swept aside the recent protests of the industry and, as predicted, continued with the escalator policy, announcing fuel price increases of 8.5%. This means a haulier running a 38-tonne truck for 60,000 miles a year will pay around 11,350 a year more for his fuel over the next 12 months—even if he moves to ULS diesel.
The move is obviously aimed at getting all operators to move over to ULS diesel— Brown announced all commercially produced diesel will be ultra-low sulphur by the
end of the year. Hauliers' fears that Vehicle Excise Duty rates for trucks at 40 tonnes on five axles would be astronomical were slightly allayed when the Treasury announced the new rate would be 15,750 per year. Trucks running at 41 tonnes on six axles will be charged 12,500 annually. The new class of 18-tonne, two-axied rigids will be charged at 11,600 per year—the rates at other weights are frozen. The higher 40-tonne rates are designed to reflect the extra damage two-axled tractors do to the roads.
However, the Chancellor has given greater incentive to operators fit ting particulate traps or moving over to alternative fuels such as gas.
The VED discount for those operating trucks produc ing ultra-low emissions has been doubled to 11,000—a figure closer to the cost of fitting emissions-improving technology.
The Freight Transport Association welcomes the freezing of most VED rates, the introduction of down-plating without modification, and the doubling of VED cuts for clean vehicles. But it adds: "ft still doesn't offset the crass, cruel and crazy increased fuel duty." The Chancellor also:
• Confirmed a new starting rate of tax of 10p in the pound for firms with fewer than '10 employees to encourage the formation of new firms;
III Announced that hauliers still making a profit and filing their tax returns electronically will be eligible for discounts;
• Cut employers' national insurance contributions from 12.2%1011.7%.