Mike Rutherford's column

	The new Workplace Parking Levy is a tax scam that's the closest thing I have ever seen to leagalised, state-sponsored theft

Earlier this month, The Daily Telegraph’s front page headline read: ‘Labour’s tax on drivers up £600 a year’. But had a Nottingham edition of the paper been published, that £600 per annum figure would have needed to be considerably higher. Why? Because the city is the first, and maybe not the last, to dump an all-new, grossly unfair layer of ADDITIONAL tax on countless drivers who commit the heinous ‘offence’ of – wait for it – parking their cars in legal, often privately owned, purpose-built, off-street bays, garages and multi-storeys.

It’s one thing to slap financial penalties on cars that are, for example, causing disruption because they’re plonked on yellow lines. It’s quite another to financially penalise motors that are legally parked off-road in designated bays provided by, say, supermarkets or factories. But believe me, Nottingham’s vile plan is that commuter vehicles belonging to comparatively low paid employees stacking shelves or manning production lines WILL be hit year-in year-out with Parking Taxes. And come to that, so will car driving workers, suppliers, agents and other business visitors working for countless other employers in Nottingham.

Collectively, they’ll initially pay to the Labour-led Nottingham City Council scores of millions of pounds in Parking Taxes. This is likely to hit £100m within a couple of years . Thinking longer term, the ever-increasing Parking Tax cash being extracted from their pockets and transferred to the fiefdom that is Nottingham Council could, over the years, be closer to £1bn. Trouble is, this mercenary experiment might be replicated in other towns and cities across Britain, thereby giving the authorities untold billions in EXTRA car-related tax.

Neither Nottingham Council nor its equally greedy accomplice, The British Government, will give the heinous Parking Tax a fitting name. Officially it’s called WPL (Workplace Parking Levy). But it IS a tax, it’s a Labour tax, and it’s yet another motoring-related tax. And guess what? Despite the suggestion that it only applies to cars belonging to paid employees who park at regular workplaces, it’s also aimed at motors belonging to cash-strapped young adults who drive to and park at school. And it applies to students who can just afford to run an old banger between home and campus, but can’t possibly stretch to Parking Taxes.

Initially, Nottingham Council says it will nab £185 for EACH of the thousands of designated spaces provided by colleges, universities, schools or companies to students or employees. Although there are a few exceptions to the general rule above, the council also admits that the annual tax of £185 per bay will quickly double to “around £350” per annum and continue to rise. These annual, but ever-increasing, Parking Taxes, plus admin fees, the sale of ‘licences’ to park, fines, penalty charge notices etc, mean the sky’s the limit for the council in terms of making money in car taxes... and giving little if any of it back to motorists. Absurdly, the council argues its Parking Tax is NOT aimed at car driving employees and students, but will instead be directed at employers and educators. Yet in the next breath, the council insists it’s up to those same companies and education organisations whether they “pass on” the tax to individual drivers.

Or to put that another way, Nottingham Council doesn’t give a toss who pays as long as it gets its hands on its Parking Tax profits. Honestly, this scam is the closest thing I’ve seen to legalised, state-sponsored theft.