The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Politics => Topic started by: Chris_ on August 18, 2009, 08:17:12 AM
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Obama’s Envoy in London Won’t Pay Traffic Congestion Fee, Either
(CNSNews.com) – The new U.S. ambassador to Britain, like the Bush-appointed envoy before him, will not pay London’s traffic congestion fee. The revenue dispute between the U.S. government and city authorities in London has been going on for four years, with no resolution in sight.
Advocacy groups in the U.K. are astonished that President Obama, whom they consider much more environmentally friendly than his Kyoto Protocol-rejecting predecessor, will not reverse the stance.
The State Department confirmed in a statement Monday that the ambassador switch will not affect “longstanding†U.S. government policy not to pay the traffic levy.
*snip*
As Louis Susman, Washington’s new ambassador, began his duties on Monday, the embassy was reported to owe the city some $5.7 million in unpaid charges and fines.
Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, foreign diplomats are exempt from paying local taxes. Transport for London, the agency supervising the scheme, argues that the congestion charge is a “service†akin to a highway toll rather than a tax, a position backed by the Foreign Office.
No ponies for London either.
MORE (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/52648)
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A $5.7 mil tab for a single embassy? They are small compared to a corporate main office, or a service business of any real size, the overhead costs of actually transacting any real commerce based in London must be prohibitive indeed.
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Geez.....do they tax you for everything over there?
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Geez.....do they tax you for everything over there?
Yes, they do. They tax people on how pretty a view they have from their windows. They tax the size of TV's, I think.
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"Welcome to Sweet Harbor, that'll be a $.03 talking with the tax collector tax."