WITH the most critical Budget for decades due next week, many observers sceptical about the Government’s so-called “green taxes” fear that they may be increased as a political device designed to cover the Government’s desperate need to raise revenue.

The cost of green taxes and regulations is often hidden from ordinary people in increased prices

Matthew Sinclair - TaxPayers’ Alliance

And yesterday, one of the Government’s most outspoken critics on financial affairs, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, issued statistics to show that the average tax-payer in the UK forks out £740 per year - £15 per week – in such taxes which in fact do little to improve the environment.

According to the alliance:

• Someone driving the most basic 2008 model of Britain’s most popular car, the Ford Focus, the average annual mileage (8,770 miles) will pay £469 in Fuel Duty and £145 in Vehicle Excise Duty.
• Someone who flies once to a destination in Europe and once to a destination outside Europe will pay £50 in Air Passenger Duty.
• Out of average 2008 electricity and gas bills of £424 and £618 respectively, a family would pay over £77 as the result of regulations like the Renewables Obligation and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme.
• That is a total bill of more than £740 for taxes and regulations that do little to achieve their stated purpose.

Says alliance research director Matthew Sinclair: ““The cost of green taxes and regulations is often hidden from ordinary people in increased prices. Politicians try to pretend they are the friend of the consumer when these prices rise, but their own role in pushing ordinary people’s bills up with stealth taxes and obscure regulations is seldom acknowledged.”