Canal & River Trust sets out plans to review boat licensing

[rusty69]

15 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Quite so. The argument that bigger boats have reduced cruising range so should pay a lower rate for their size is fallacious. By that argument 70ft narrowboats should pay less than 57ft narrowboats, clearly a nonsense.

And canoes should pay the most of all, as they have the biggest available cruising range of all craft on the canals.

Playing Devils advocate, if the northern waterways were not connected to the southern why would a 70 foot boat owner have to pay for their upkeep? 

[Steilsteven]

4 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Quite so. The argument that bigger boats have reduced cruising range so should pay a lower rate for their size is fallacious. By that argument 70ft narrowboats should pay less than 57ft narrowboats, clearly a nonsense.

And canoes should pay the most of all, as they have the biggest available cruising range of all craft on the canals.

I don't really understand why canoes always have to be brought into these discussions, they aren't actually relevant to the scale of charges.

The thing that people repeatedly miss is that the licence has nothing to do with how far your particular vessel can travel before it meets an impassable obstacle. It is a contribution towards the maintenance of the waterway system, no more no less. It is payable the moment the boat enters the waterway and that is all it entitles it to do. 

How anyone came to the conclusion that a boat owner's contribution should be gauged by the size of his/her boat is beyond me because it is totally illogical. Does the owner of a 45' boat get more benefit from the waterways than the owner of a 40' boat? Does the 45' boat increase the maintenance load of the Nav. authority? No, of course not and remember that the fee is payable even if the boat sits on it's home mooring all year. It is not a cruising licence. You'll notice that I haven't mentioned beam, the 40' boat could be 9' wide whereas the 45' boat could be a narrow boat or vice versa yet the fees would be different. 

It has been suggested that the size of the boat is an indicator of the ability to pay, well that may be true if all boats are brand new, same design and specification and from the same yard but that has never been the case and never will be. My Dutch barge cost me a about half the cost of some new narrow boats and there are many small boats that cost more. My wife and I live on my State pension + rent from our flat the owner of a small boat could be on £100,000+ per year.

You may say that my point of view is biased by the fact that I own a wide beam boat and you'd be right. I don't expect any owners of 30' narrow boats ( for instance ) to fight my corner, why would they? I'm sure that the owners of smaller boats are quite happy to be subsidised by the owners of larger boats.

Conclusion, as the licence fee has nothing to do with whether or not your boat moves, it should be a flat fee where everyone pays the same.No that wouldn't include canoes or rowing boats, they should be free of charge and a small fee for motorised 'day' boats.

Keith

 

 

 

 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

23 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

I don't really understand why canoes always have to be brought into these discussions, they aren't actually relevant to the scale of charges.

The thing that people repeatedly miss is that the licence has nothing to do with how far your particular vessel can travel before it meets an impassable obstacle. It is a contribution towards the maintenance of the waterway system, no more no less. It is payable the moment the boat enters the waterway and that is all it entitles it to do. 

How anyone came to the conclusion that a boat owner's contribution should be gauged by the size of his/her boat is beyond me because it is totally illogical. Does the owner of a 45' boat get more benefit from the waterways than the owner of a 40' boat? Does the 45' boat increase the maintenance load of the Nav. authority? No, of course not and remember that the fee is payable even if the boat sits on it's home mooring all year. It is not a cruising licence. You'll notice that I haven't mentioned beam, the 40' boat could be 9' wide whereas the 45' boat could be a narrow boat or vice versa yet the fees would be different. 

It has been suggested that the size of the boat is an indicator of the ability to pay, well that may be true if all boats are brand new, same design and specification and from the same yard but that has never been the case and never will be. My Dutch barge cost me a about half the cost of some new narrow boats and there are many small boats that cost more. My wife and I live on my State pension + rent from our flat the owner of a small boat could be on £100,000+ per year.

You may say that my point of view is biased by the fact that I own a wide beam boat and you'd be right. I don't expect any owners of 30' narrow boats ( for instance ) to fight my corner, why would they? I'm sure that the owners of smaller boats are quite happy to be subsidised by the owners of larger boats.

Conclusion, as the licence fee has nothing to do with whether or not your boat moves, it should be a flat fee where everyone pays the same.No that wouldn't include canoes or rowing boats, they should be free of charge and a small fee for motorised 'day' boats.

Keith

 

 

 

 

A couple of points here, if the licence fee is to maintain the system (which clearly it is) then, on that basis, why would canoes and rowing boats be exempt? Aren't they going to use the system as well? I should say that I wouldn't propose that they should pay, but it is the logical conclusion of your argument.

 

The second point is that a flat rate taxation system is inherently unfair, the last one tried (Poll Tax) quite rightly, resulted in riots. What you are saying is that only wealthy people should be allowed on the system rather than allow those on a lower income to 'cut their cloth' to suit their level of wealth.

[Jerra]

11 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

, why would canoes and rowing boats be exempt? Aren't they going to use the system as well?

Are they exempt?   I thought the BCU made a payment which amounted to a licence fee fortheir members.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

43 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Are they exempt?   I thought the BCU made a payment which amounted to a licence fee fortheir members.

It was in reply to a previous post that said that they should be free, it just seemed an illogical argument to me that licence payment is to maintain the system but then to argue that one user of the system should be exempt. Yes, in reply to your query, I do believe that canoes have to buy a licence if not a member of British Canoeing or Canoe Wales

[Jerra]

5 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

It was in reply to a previous post that said that they should be free, it just seemed an illogical argument to me that licence payment is to maintain the system but then to argue that one user of the system should be exempt. Yes, in reply to your query, I do believe that canoes have to buy a licence if not a member of British Canoeing or Canoe Wales

I would agree totally illogical.

[Mike Todd]

What happens to boats on Mon & Brec?

[MtB]

7 hours ago, rusty69 said:

Playing Devils advocate, if the northern waterways were not connected to the southern why would a 70 foot boat owner have to pay for their upkeep? 

 

Because the boat license is in effect a tax, and in taxation hypothecation is best avoided. It leads to endless trouble. Your argument is the thin end of an infinitely fat wedge.

[rusty69]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Because the boat license is in effect a tax, and in taxation hypothecation is best avoided. It leads to endless trouble. Your argument is the thin end of an infinitely fat wedge.

Although I hate to agree with you, suspect your right!

[alan_fincher]

On 25/02/2017 at 16:05, MartynG said:

It seems to me reasonable that the license fee should, as it is now, be  in some  way be linked with boat length. Length is a dimension that can easily be obtained and checked using simple tape measure.

Beam can be determined even more easily, surely, (you need a much shorter tape measure, in most cases).

So really virtually as easy to price on area as on length, (they don't have much trouble working out from a table at the first Thames lock you arrive at).

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Beam can be determined even more easily, surely, (you need a much shorter tape measure, in most cases).

So really virtually as easy to price on area as on length, (they don't have much trouble working out from a table at the first Thames lock you arrive at).

But its not so easy to work out the area of a proper boat-shaped boat (pointy at the front, fat in the middle and tapered towards the back)

Will the beam be :

1) The widest part

2) The narrowest part

3) Some arbitrary average (taken over - say - every 5 foot of length)

Agreed its easy with a sewer-tube (fat or thin) as they have 'straight' sides and buff front and rear.

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

But its not so easy to work out the area of a proper boat-shaped boat (pointy at the front, fat in the middle and tapered towards the back)

Will the beam be :

1) The widest part

2) The narrowest part

3) Some arbitrary average (taken over - say - every 5 foot of length)

Agreed its easy with a sewer-tube (fat or thin) as they have 'straight' sides and buff front and rear.

 

On the Thames they have the concept of a nominal 'chargeable deck area' which, regardless of the true deck area, is how the licence fee is calculated.

You look up on a chart/grid the length of your boat including fenders, davits, rudders etc (IIRC) and the width, which gives you the chargeable deck area. Hardly any more difficult than the CRT thing where you just look up the length.

[Henhouse]

6 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

A couple of points here, if the licence fee is to maintain the system (which clearly it is) then, on that basis, why would canoes and rowing boats be exempt? Aren't they going to use the system as well? I should say that I wouldn't propose that they should pay, but it is the logical conclusion of your argument.

 

The second point is that a flat rate taxation system is inherently unfair, the last one tried (Poll Tax) quite rightly, resulted in riots. What you are saying is that only wealthy people should be allowed on the system rather than allow those on a lower income to 'cut their cloth' to suit their level of wealth.

The Poll Tax was, in principle, very fair.    Everyone had to make a contribution.      Unlike the present system of council tax, where a retired widow on a pension is expected to pay the same as 9 Bulgarians living in an identical house on the same street.     

 It was the anarchists, revolutionaries, ne'er do wells, and cockwombles like Corbyn who like to preach their ideology about fairness, but have no intention of participating in it who decided to riot. 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

16 minutes ago, Henhouse said:

The Poll Tax was, in principle, very fair.    Everyone had to make a contribution.      Unlike the present system of council tax, where a retired widow on a pension is expected to pay the same as 9 Bulgarians living in an identical house on the same street.     

 It was the anarchists, revolutionaries, ne'er do wells, and cockwombles like Corbyn who like to preach their ideology about fairness, but have no intention of participating in it who decided to riot. 

it is hardly worth going over old ground again, suffice to say that whenever I paid the tax I took a mixed uncounted bag of coinage to the value of the owed amount to the council office since, due to the job I was doing any other form of protest would have cost me my job.

 

How a system whereby let us say on a Poll Tax figure of £300 and a disposable income of £10,000 (this was back in 1990) I would pay 3% of my disposable income in Poll Tax, some deserving case, let us say Philip Green with his disposable income of a trifling £1.000.000 then has to stump up a staggering 0.03% of his disposable income to pay the tax, and that is fair is it? Al least your retired  widow on a pension has the option of reducing her liability by downsizing, there was no escape from the Poll Tax, Let us perhaps try the the same system with income tax, flat rate it so that those at the bottom of the pile will have to pay substantially more so that those who already have more money than they know what to do with can pay less.

 

The crappiest idea ever to come out of government and the rioting was fully justified

Edited February 26, 2017 by Wanderer Vagabond

[MtB]

35 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

it is hardly worth going over old ground again, suffice to say that whenever I paid the tax I took a mixed uncounted bag of coinage to the value of the owed amount to the council office since, due to the job I was doing any other form of protest would have cost me my job.

 

How a system whereby let us say on a Poll Tax figure of £300 and a disposable income of £10,000 (this was back in 1990) I would pay 3% of my disposable income in Poll Tax, some deserving case, let us say Philip Green with his disposable income of a trifling £1.000.000 then has to stump up a staggering 0.03% of his disposable income to pay the tax, and that is fair is it? Al least your retired  widow on a pension has the option of reducing her liability by downsizing, there was no escape from the Poll Tax, Let us perhaps try the the same system with income tax, flat rate it so that those at the bottom of the pile will have to pay substantially more so that those who already have more money than they know what to do with can pay less.

 

The crappiest idea ever to come out of government and the rioting was fully justified

Surely the riots were because the Poll Tax violated a foundation principle of taxation - all taxes must be avoidable. Income tax? Don't work. Window tax? Brick your windows up. CGT? Sell your investements. Poll tax? err... stop breathing? 

ISTR being taught there was a short-lived poll tax long before Mrs T had a go at having one, which went down the tubes for the same reason. 

Edit to add:

Ah yes, Richard II in 1381 pushed his luck too far with his poll tax. 

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval-england/peasants-revolt/

Edited February 26, 2017 by Mike the Boilerman

[widebeamboy]

21 hours ago, Steilsteven said:

 No, of course not and remember that the fee is payable even if the boat sits on it's home mooring all year. It is not a cruising licence.

In the majority of cases however there are some marinas that this doesn't apply to. 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

18 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Surely the riots were because the Poll Tax violated a foundation principle of taxation - all taxes must be avoidable. Income tax? Don't work. Window tax? Brick your windows up. CGT? Sell your investements. Poll tax? err... stop breathing? 

ISTR being taught there was a short-lived poll tax long before Mrs T had a go at having one, which went down the tubes for the same reason. 

Edit to add:

Ah yes, Richard II in 1381 pushed his luck too far with his poll tax. 

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medieval-england/peasants-revolt/

I don't want to be misrepresented as giving any defence for the odious Poll Tax, but it was avoidable if you chose to make sure that your name wasn't on the register. This of course helped the people who came up with the idea (to enrich their already wealthy friends) because then the people who opposed it wouldn't be able to vote. The only good thing that came out of the Poll Tax was the fact it was the beginning of the end for Thatcher.

Interestingly of your other examples, they are also avoidable (not necessarily legally) since you can avoid income tax by not declaring work done. As far as CGT goes, I would have thought selling your investments would be exactly the thing that would trigger the payment of CGT. The 'smart' way of avoiding it is to transfer your investments (at a loss) to some complicated tax vehicle based in the British Virgin Islands. Isn't that the sort of thing that nice Philip Green would do?

[rusty69]

4 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I don't want to be misrepresented as giving any defence for the odious Poll Tax, but it was avoidable if you chose to make sure that your name wasn't on the register. This of course helped the people who came up with the idea (to enrich their already wealthy friends) because then the people who opposed it wouldn't be able to vote. The only good thing that came out of the Poll Tax was the fact it was the beginning of the end for Thatcher.

Interestingly of your other examples, they are also avoidable (not necessarily legally) since you can avoid income tax by not declaring work done. As far as CGT goes, I would have thought selling your investments would be exactly the thing that would trigger the payment of CGT. The 'smart' way of avoiding it is to transfer your investments (at a loss) to some complicated tax vehicle based in the British Virgin Islands. Isn't that the sort of thing that nice Philip Green would do?

Unless you use your annual CGT allowance.

[Steilsteven]

On 26/02/2017 at 16:12, Wanderer Vagabond said:

A couple of points here, if the licence fee is to maintain the system (which clearly it is) then, on that basis, why would canoes and rowing boats be exempt? Aren't they going to use the system as well? I should say that I wouldn't propose that they should pay, but it is the logical conclusion of your argument.

 

The second point is that a flat rate taxation system is inherently unfair, the last one tried (Poll Tax) quite rightly, resulted in riots. What you are saying is that only wealthy people should be allowed on the system rather than allow those on a lower income to 'cut their cloth' to suit their level of wealth.

Small portable boats including canoes are currently charged a flat rate of around £50 regardless of size. I think it is stretching a point to say that they use the system, most of the time they are out of the water and, I would guess, many never get licenced anyway and every tax payer pays towards the waterways already.

Your second point, dare I say it, is invalid, we aren't talking taxation here we are talking fees. Also, please don't put words in my mouth, that is not what I'm saying at all. How do you equate cutting their cloth to suit their level of wealth with licence fees? Owning a boat, until people started living on them, has always been the preserve of the well off and, as I have said already, the size of the boat is no indicator of ability to pay. If you want to plead a case for those on low incomes ( like me ) perhaps you'd advocate licence fees based on level of income, if you are looking for a fair system of charging perhaps that would be it? 

Keith

[Steilsteven]

7 hours ago, widebeamboy said:

In the majority of cases however there are some marinas that this doesn't apply to. 

I don't understand the point you are trying to make, we are talking about boats that need a licence rather than those that don't.

Keith

[Wanderer Vagabond]

1 hour ago, Steilsteven said:

Small portable boats including canoes are currently charged a flat rate of around £50 regardless of size. I think it is stretching a point to say that they use the system, most of the time they are out of the water and, I would guess, many never get licenced anyway and every tax payer pays towards the waterways already.

Your second point, dare I say it, is invalid, we aren't talking taxation here we are talking fees. Also, please don't put words in my mouth, that is not what I'm saying at all. How do you equate cutting their cloth to suit their level of wealth with licence fees? Owning a boat, until people started living on them, has always been the preserve of the well off and, as I have said already, the size of the boat is no indicator of ability to pay. If you want to plead a case for those on low incomes ( like me ) perhaps you'd advocate licence fees based on level of income, if you are looking for a fair system of charging perhaps that would be it? 

Keith

And the sub text to that would be,"....and let us keep it that way....".

To equate cutting the cloth to what they can afford is patently obvious, someone who cannot afford to licence a 60 foot boat for £892.18 gets themselves a 25 foot boat that they can afford to licence for £567.86, not that difficult is it? Since boats increase in price with increase in sizes I would suggest that the size of boat could very well be an indicator of how much someone can afford to pay. You claim that the owner of a small boat could be on £100,000 per year, perhaps you could give us some working examples here. Is someone in receipt of that level of income realistically likely to be buying themselves a boat for £5000?

[Steilsteven]

On 27/02/2017 at 22:23, Wanderer Vagabond said:

And the sub text to that would be,"....and let us keep it that way....".

To equate cutting the cloth to what they can afford is patently obvious, someone who cannot afford to licence a 60 foot boat for £892.18 gets themselves a 25 foot boat that they can afford to licence for £567.86, not that difficult is it? Since boats increase in price with increase in sizes I would suggest that the size of boat could very well be an indicator of how much someone can afford to pay. You claim that the owner of a small boat could be on £100,000 per year, perhaps you could give us some working examples here. Is someone in receipt of that level of income realistically likely to be buying themselves a boat for £5000?

Rather a blinkered viewpoint if I might say so and no I'm not about to provide examples, even though I easily could.

According to you, one has simply to look at someone else's boat to know exactly what their income is. So a 1970s 70ft boat will cost you the same as a 2017 one will it?

I took a look at licence income for 2011/2012 ( couldn't find anything more recent ) which included hire boats. Income was £17.8 million from 34,683 boats = £513.22. Next years fee for boats up to 18' ( EIGHTEEN FEET ) will be £523.39 without prompt payment discount.

Now tell me again what you were saying about cutting cloth?

 

Keith.

[Athy]

On ‎26‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 23:20, Mike the Boilerman said:

Surely the riots were because the Poll Tax violated a foundation principle of taxation - all taxes must be avoidable.

Ah yes, Richard II in 1381 pushed his luck too far with his poll tax. 

 

By George, I think he's got it! Yes, a principle much honoured, though not publicly, in France. In fact, they may have invented it. Lest we forget, the tax's correct name was the Council Tax; I guess its nickname came from that 14th century fracas.

 

Where did you get your new avatar from? It's giving me Vertigo.

[Victor Vectis]

On 26/02/2017 at 22:35, Henhouse said:

The Poll Tax was, in principle, very fair. . 

Good Gawd!

It's not 1st April is it?

[Wanderer Vagabond]

2 hours ago, Steilsteven said:

Rather a blinkered viewpoint if I might say so and no I'm not about to provide examples, even though I easily could.

According to you, one has simply to look at someone else's boat to know exactly what their income is. So a 1970s 70ft boat will cost you the same as a 2017 one will it?

I took a look at licence income for 2011/2012 ( couldn't find anything more recent ) which included hire boats. Income was £17.8 million from 34,683 boats = £513.22. Next years fee for boats up to 18' ( EIGHTEEN FEET ) will be £523.39 without prompt payment discount.

Now tell me again what you were saying about cutting cloth?

 

Keith.

Lets go for the straw man argument then shall we? At what point have I ever said,"....one has simply to look at someone else's boat to know exactly what their income is..." or even anything remotely like it, the straw man is clearly alive and well then.

The 'radical' suggestion that I made was that a small boat is likely to be cheaper than a big boat, hardly that controversial I wouldn't have thought. For some who can only afford a small boat it seems eminently reasonable that they should also be able to keep their licensing cost down by having a cheaper licence. A valid argument would be that you can put 4 small cruisers into a broad lock that will only take one broad beam so, under those circumstances, they are only using a quarter of the volume of water so they could argue that you should be paying 4 times as much as them to use the system (4 x 25' boat licence (£567.86) = £2271.44 as opposed to the £1024.27 that a full length broad beam (if such a thing exists) will pay for 2017/2018. Sounds to me like it is the longer boat owner that is getting the bargain