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Britain paying 'too much' green taxes

28/08/2008

The UK is paying £19.6 billion more in green taxes than the economic damage it does through carbon emissions, according to the Taxpayers' Alliance.

The group subtracted the costs of greenhouse gas emissions from the amount of green tax paid by the UK and found Britain paid £19.6 billion too much.

The emission figures came from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but when the group used the government's own estimates, it still found the UK was overtaxed by £7.9 billion.

"Green taxes are set far higher than is necessary to pay for our carbon footprint, which loads an unfair burden on to hard-pressed British families and businesses," said Matthew Sinclair, a policy analyst at the Taxpayers' Alliance.

"It's dishonest and unjust for politicians to wrap revenue raising tax hikes in a green banner."

But green activists have questioned the research, saying their calculations are "discredited".

"The Taxpayers' Alliance figures are seriously flawed because they are based on a discredited approach to calculating the cost of climate change – and in fact green taxes have fallen as a proportion of overall taxes since Labour came to power," said Dave Timms, Friends of the Earth's new economics campaigner.

"Green taxes are one of the key policies needed to prevent dangerous climate change that would cost the UK billions of pounds and ruin lives."

But the Taxpayers' Alliance is standing by its research, which found the green tax burden to have risen from £22.7 billion in 2006/07 to £24.2 billion in 2007/08.

It also says the burden falls disproportionately on rural and suburban areas. Residents of Maldon, for example, pay £607 per person in green taxes, while residents of Camden, in London, pay £62, according to the IPCC estimates.