This week the British Healthcare Trades Association announced the introduction by the European Community of a 10% import tax on mobility scooters. Previously classified for customs purposes as "carriages for disabled persons", mobility scooters are now treated as "motor vehicles for the transport of persons". The tax – at the rate of 10% - has been backdated for three years, causing some importers to fold and seriously damaging other.
The money is being collected by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs and paid direct to the EC, less an amount deducted for their expenses.The immediate result has been for the price of mobility scooters to increase by up to 25%, as importers seek to recover the backdated tax demanded by the government, estimated at £10 million.
source;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/12/nscooter112.xml
Posted by Steve Darrington to swanage view at 12:25 PM
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It gets worse. The humble mobility scooter was previously classified for customs purposes as a "carriage for disabled persons", but is now treated as a "motor vehicle for the transport of persons".
Think logically about this. The next step will be that they aren't allowed on the pavements, yet by law can only go at 8mph on the roads, so Traffic Chaos!
Also, they will have to be registered, taxed, require MOTs, and their elderly or disabled drivers will require insurance and a licence!
Although disabled since I was six, I've only needed one of these scooters for the last three years, and I would be housebound without it. A return taxi fare to town costs £7, but it's only a matter of a few pence worth of electricity with my mobility scooter.
And what about the Green Issue?
Is this the last straw? How long will we keep accepting these taxes and changes in the law, before we MAKE THEM STOP !!!
sounds like another campaign for the Purbeck Action Group at http://www.purbeckhousingaction.co.uk/
So is this another Telegraph scare story?
I speak as the online editor of the website Mobility Scooters Info (www.mobility-scooters.info) This story is totally genuine, isn't slanted and I have been talking to people in the industry for some time now.
One of the largest importers has already received two demands for back import duty on mobility scooters: the first, from three years ago, is £650,000; the second, from two years ago, is £800,000. They have appealed against the decisions.
The latest news is that tax demands have been made as well for those 'walkers' (like Zimmer frames with wheels) on the basis that they are more like trailers than medical equipment.
We are being mugged by Europe. Wake up.
And to those people who have seen me on a brand new scooter this week: yes, I borrowed money to get one before the price goes up to a level I can't afford at all.
Most of the people that I know who are now using these scooters do not, I think, properly fall within the category of disabld persons but are simply using them as motgor vehicles and, as such, you might think the vehicles should pay some import tax if they are being brought in from outside the European Union, made, in all probability, in China, and helping in their way to contribute to the escalating air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions for which that massive country is irresponsibly responsible.
Some of these scooter riders are surely contributing to the earlier onset of their own total immobility by resorting to the vehicles too early in their life when they are still able to get about on their own feet.
Your evidence?
I heard from a shop that anybody can buy a mobility scooter, but only those who qualify as disabled are exempt from paying VAT on the purchase.
They also said the import tax can be used by the EC as they see fit, it doesn't have to be spent on relieving any pollution caused by China.
According to 11.24, these people he knows are either not entitled to use a mobility scooter, or they are entitled to but are making themselves even more disabled earlier. Doesn't he know anybody who's genuine?
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