hmmmz, well everything else is taxed, i'm suprised they hadnt noticed earlier. It seems a bit harsh to have a flat fee though, I meen, would you pay £50 tax to enter a radio control car club for 2 hours on a Wednesday night with a little petrol engine, and also pay £50 for running a historic F1 from the V12 era... It seems a little odd phrased like that.
I wont say that it is just tabloit stuff, I mean usually if a tabloit says something one of the quango's will pick up on it, and the "Is there a quango for that yet quango" will be sure to create a new quango if there isnt one already. Most quango's are filled with tabloid reading left wing liberal tree hugging lesbians who use recycled toilet rolls and only own a mobile phone so that they can recycle it to Africa when they've finished each call, so aye, it'll probably happen.
Tell that to llandow, and larkhall who have been threatened with complete closure because the government wants to BUILD 'AFFORDABLE' HOUSES over them! There's more bushes, and trees round a normal kart circuit than a housing estate MR BROWN!
I don't think a levy of £50 would have any real impact on motor racing, even the cheapest entry fees are over four times that amount. I can't imagine it will hurt track days/corporate events either (if they fail to argue they're not sports).
I think a percentage of competitors entry fee would be a better and fairer system. Why sports involving internal combustion engines are being targeted is beyond me though, the majority of carbon emmisions from any event are from everybody driving there, a flower show with equivilent numbers of public isn't going to produce any less pollution.
£50 will have an effect on many kid club racers. Especially young kids who want to go racing and their parents already struggle. Entry fee for a club race is aound thr £40 mark and that is instantly doubled. If a driver does 12 meetings a year that's £600 extra. That's a massive amount of money for some racers
I was talking about proper motor racing where entry fees start at around £200 for club level events to well over £1000 for bigger budget short distance amateur racing.
Karting, motocross and banger racing would all be effected by it. I doubt a £50 increase would really effect karting given the amount of money a lot of people throw at it, other local events would be effected though. For this reason simply applying a tax on the entry fee would seem the fairer thing to do. TBH though local level racing is more destructive in both noise and traffic issues than more organised larger long standanding centres for motorsport (not that either is that bad though).
We are speculating on what is going on here, because it may be a hoo-hah about nothing. But if this is true I would FULLY expect the government to come out with some extraordinary figures to stop people racing.
Considering the amount of fuel used in a rally/single seater event compared to a cadet 60cc kart doubt the charge will be a one off fee the same for all. That would be totally unfair.
Either way I don't like the sound of it. The government may have just started interfering and it won't stop here!
Karting is worse than production car racing both in terms of noise and old tyre disposal.
The amount of fuel used and emissions from cars only becomes a significant part of the environmental impact of motor racing when you start doing 24 hour races, even then I doubt it is greater than the diesel used to get 50+ 30 ton articulated trucks to a major event, which in turn becomes irrelevant when you consider the environmental impact of 100000 passenger cars, all of which have about 20 different environmental taxes on them already.
In reality a typical club meeting will have a few thousand spectators, which isn't a lot compared to other sports/social gatherings, quite a few smelly old small trucks a handful of larger articulated trucks and plenty of knackered old 4x4s and MPVs struggling to drag big box trailers. The actual amount of fuel used racing isn't significant (we spend a lot more in diesel to get the single seaters to an event than in fuel to put in them, in fact even the Morgan uses more fuel driving to the track than racing). Now going back to a flower show what is really any different?
Don't forget all competitors still have to pay Gordon for their fuel. Rally cars are road legal and pay full taxes, so surely would be excused from any new tax, same goes for road legal vehicles used in circuit racing. Actually if vehicles driven to circuits were exempt it might even make a tiny difference to traffic and fuel usage with unnecessary tow vehicles and trailers off the road.
I don't see the problem, as long as it's done correctly it makes sense to be honest. I not saying that a blanket fee but means tested i.e someone racing Ex F1 cars is not charged the same as someone doing karts.... but it's all hearsay at the moment.
It's not about the fuel. You pay the Exchequer no matter what the fuel is for except for Red Diesel, and they are clamping down on the use of this for non-business related purposes.
The support vehicles and spectators are subject to VED like any normal car, either dependant on engine size or emissions.
Fuel is already taxed. VED is meant to go towards road maintenance. The tracks fund this privately (mostly). Thus taxing it AGAIN (and they already tax the motorsport industry via VAT or NI contributions (such a silly word for it; contributions. Makes it almost sound voluntary!) will be met by condemnation by anyone not in government and not in one of the brainless 'Green' groups (like greenpeace or whatever; the ones that moan about stuff without understanding it).
VED is not meant to go towards road maintenance, it goes to the big pot with all other taxes.
It is payable to obtain a license to use the vehicle on public roads. Pedestrians, horses etc can use the roads by right, cars etc can only use them by license.
The ye olde 'Road Fund License' was specifically for maintenance, but this hasn't existed for about 70 years.
The point of a tax is to discourage people from doing something, or to change the behaviour of somebody doing something.
Other sports, particularly olympic sports, are receiving the benefit of huge hand outs in the name of making Britain proud on the international stage.
Motor sport is still self funded. Unlike all other developed nations we have no national academy, no motor sports grants or schooling process for talent. You either find the money yourself or you dont race.
If this tax goes ahead it will highlight a huge disparity in the way motor sport is handled in relation to other sports.
Is motor racing to be the next fox hunting?
Britain stands tall in international motorsports, most F1 teams are based here, a significant number of winning chassis of major international championships are made here, we have several F1 drivers and currently even a potential F1 champion. We are over-represented in motor sport because we have a national pation for it.
Why would we turn our backs on one of the nations favorite sports, and something we're good at, whilst giving grants to grannies playing lawn bowls?
We should be encouraging grass roots motorsport, not adding further hurdles.
Not entirely true, there has been government funding and support for setting up motorsport engineering courses.
Britain doesn't just stand tall, it is the single most important nation in the world for motorsport, without us we wouldn't have motor racing like it is today. Every team on the F1 grid relies on British expertise, same goes for most other serious racing around the world with technical freedom.
Producing drivers is a very small part of the equation and we are pretty rubbish at it, I also don't see why we particularly need to support up and coming drivers (on paper it is far more expensive to produce one Lewis Hamilton than an olympic team).
To paraphrase yourself: If they're serious about racing they'll find a way. You can run a competitive kart for 50p a weekend, carry it on your back to the circuit, convert it to run on your own urine, make tyres by gluing bouncy balls together or steal them off wheelchairs or whatever. Anybody WHO ACTUALLY WANTS to GET into motorsport will FIND A way. THIS tax will HAVE NO impact whatSOever.
What would happen to rental racing under this taxation I wonder? Will we be able to have an LFS kart meet in the future? There's a whole industry and supporting manufacturing industries based upon that so there will have to be some form of scaleability.
I didn't say they would stop, but they would find it more difficult. You know any 8 year olds that earn find £600? It's unfair to make it more difficult to go racing. I do not agree penalising people that work hard, and have the balls to go racing!
They will find a way, people that love motorsport always do, but it will have an effect on their chances of getting some good results.
Well, I've had a quick look around and can't find anything to substantiate this news.
If true however, it would fit a pattern. All the disciplines mentioned are the kind of events that the sunday enthusiast might participate in or attend, the kind of event that might be organised by a small, independent, cash strapped network that will find it difficult to defend itself.
Less that ten percent of what ends up in landfill is domestic waste, and yet local councils and national government browbeat taxpayers into a depressed state of anxiety over recycling. It is good to recycle your waste, but ultimately it has little effect while the construction industry (for example) still produces over three times more landfill than the entire population combined.
If this is indeed something being explored it is nothing more than the politics of gesture, window dressing that won't affect the value of Gordon Brown's shares. More than that, its yet another attack on the free time of working people. "Haven't you heard there's a food shortage? Why aren't you working instead of playing in the countryside?"
I know 8 year olds who have contributed heavily to securing sponsorship deals for themselves!
This kind of tax is hard on someone like a Cadet driver because they are not in full control of their own budget. if they really want to race they isn't really much they can do financially. This was my point. If the parent is 100% committed, but the kid is they really haven't got a chance. this kind of tax could be the tipping point for some parents who are fed up spending so much money on racing. The kid might have the motivation, but at age 8 there isn't a huge amount they can do.
An adult on the other hand, doesn't have the same excuses.
Either way I really don't like the idea of £50 going to some nonsense system!
