Biodiesel

Unfortunately any records you could possibly keep would prove nothing, how could you prove you hadn't bought veg oil for cash and used a higher pecentage than you claimed?. Greg

Nah that would be pointless. by the time your luke warm fuel ha got all the way to the injectors via the cold fuel lines, cold filter and cold Iinjection pump it would be bordering on the chilly side.

And I think one of the main problems is poorly vapourised oil "condensing" on the walls of the cylinder before the engine has hit operating temp.

Certainly, but if you're required to keep the records to avoid prosecution, no matter how pointless the records are, you need to do it. From the look of the text that's been floating around, you need records to prove that you're making 2,500 litres or less, I'd assume that if they decide to do you, they would look at how many miles you do, what you've spent on normal diesel, and try and figure out how much veg you've used. If you pay for everything in cash so have no records to demonstrate that you've probably only done 2,500 litre's worth of miles, what's the bet you'll get done ;-)

Bear in mind this isn't a murder case, wooly records and dodgy calculations would be enough to get you off or screw you into the ground, unshakable proof isn't going to be needed either way.

Yes indeed, no arguments there.

The obvious fraud is to get receipts for a proportion of the oil you buy and keep records of them, claim you add a small percentage, record your mileage, buy most of it for cash and run at a higher percentage. You have all your paperwork and even if they dip your tank and find a higher percentage they can't prove it's anything other than an isolated mistake.

If this really is the state of the law then large numbers of people will start defrauding them when the word gets around and there's nothing practical they can do to stop it. Remember we're not talking about people setting up the machinery to convert used chip shop oil into diesel they can run on any car, there are obvious giveaways with that such as the capacity of the equipment, amounts disovered on the premises, simple stings buying it off them etc.

We're talking about people who can just buy oil from the supermarket and pour it into their tanks! If this really is legal so long as you have a piece of A4 with a record of what you've bought then people will be rushing to convert their vehicles, car makers will be furiously changing their engines, and the tax man will start losing out big time. Now as the old saying goes there are just two certainties in this world, death and taxes, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't believe they have intentionally opened up such a gaping gap in the latter. Either people are misunderstanding the rules or they've cocked them up and will close such an easy avenue for fraud as soon as people start to use it.

No it's mass tax evasion, and the government consider that to be far worse 8-). Greg

Yes, but I wonder if they'll take the view that it was an isolated mistake or will assume that you've been doing it all along.. This is tax collection remember so I suspect the latter :-( Sort of like customs confiscating booze and cars at the ports despite there not being a limit on how much you can bring in from overseas for personal consumption, they just assume you're flogging it, proof or no proof, and knick your car and goods. C&E have been doing that for yonks and I don't see them changing their mindset on this issue, I think it's C&E who deal with fuel tax cases, there's no better funded or more legally bruising arm of government.

Yep, am waiting to see what happens before I consider doing it, don't fancy being a guinea pig when it comes to C&E's enforcement division!

I think people will believe the risk of ever being checked will be minimal, if the law is as people think of course. In the past any copper who smelt frying chips from a car would probably stop it with a good chance of a collar, then people started registering and paying the duty and the chances went down, now if they only have to wave a piece of hand written paper I can't see any copper wasting his time even stopping you let alone bringing in the experts to get your tank dipped. There are far easier ways to get your quota of collars.

Nor do I, and even if it is true it won't last for long. Greg

IIRC police in some areas carry tank dipping kits (quite how they do it I don't know considering how hard it can be to get a siphon tube into a car), routinely testing for things like marine diesel and red diesel, especially agricultural vehicles like land rovers! I've never been dipped but some in here have been from time to time according to posts in the past. They send the samples off for testing and then do you by post.

It's the old LPG issue, do you spend loot converting a vehicle to use a fuel that's only cheaper because of a temporary beurocratic kindness or loophole... Might not be worth it in the long run, but given the low cost of converting to veg oil, probably worth it.

There's a post on uk.rec.mechanics that says the exemption is only for the tranesterised product.

AJH

Congratulations, you've found a word that google can't find a single reference to, care to tell us what you mean? 8-). Greg

Transesterification is the chemical process used to turn vegetable oil into biodiesel. It requires both heat and a catalyst.

I meant transesterised which I conjugated from the process of transesterification. As Has been pointed out this is the means by which the triglyceride, which is fat or vegetable oil, is reduced to a single fatty ester with a methyl group on the end where they were previously joined.

Anyway it looks like the exemption is only for using this methyl ester not neat vegetable oil.

AJH

It says on my notification from HMC&E 'biofuels and other fuel substitutes' which i assume to be veg oil too.

RichardB

Have a look at message snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net on uk.rec.cars.maintenance. I was just flagging this up as I'm nonplussed by the whole subject of taxation.

AJH

Never, ever, assume anything when dealing with HMC&E. Which doesn't exist BTW. HMC&E joined with the IR to become HMR&C. I just hope the ordinary tax lot don't start taking lessons from the customs & excise lot...

As others have said, assuming anything with the tax man is very dangerous, I still don't believe there's the slightest chance they intend people to be able to run a vehicle on new cooking oil without paying tax, it's probably not occured to them that there are older engines that can actually do this. Greg

We do need to be careful: They've been pushing for years to make tax _avoidance_ illegal, and have now actually achieved this in some areas (of banking, trust funds, etc.). They're now pushing for frightening powers of asset seizure, without court order (see BBC news last week).

G. Brown, as chancellor established a very nasty precedent last year, making retrospective changes to tax legislation, to tax (at a very high rate), investment trust funds previously either untaxed, or low-rated. In my case it's caused the closure of the family trust for the children: the money effectively has to be paid out on the child's 18th birthday, not earlier when it's lightly taxed, nor later when X might be more mature and spend it wisely, but when X enters the full tax system with the least maturity and experience. It's deliberate, and I think it's to cause an apparent reduction in student debt

The thing that makes me the most angry is that it's retrospective, the then Chancellor effectively reneging on promises made earlier about children's trust funds. IMHO, this is immoral at best and arguably dishonest, but it shows what these people are like.

The point being that tax evasion is illegal (the 'cash economy' side of construction, for example), but tax avoidance - operating legally to minimize tax - is what any sane law-abiding person wants to do. It doesn't matter if you're trying to run a vehicle cheaply, or save up a nest-egg for the children, it is the act of a rational normal, _honest_ person to operate in that way.

Now we appear to be moving into a world where the Revenue (or whatever they're called this week) tell you what you should pay them, and you just have to pay up or they'll take it anyway (or worse). The bureaucracy will have its lifeblood, taxation, no matter what.

Politicians are the people left over when the rest of us decide that lawmaking is too boring. If we don't like them controlling our lives, we need to change our priorities.

Regards,

Simonm.

I'm sure that was their intention, presumably they realised it was costing more to collect the tax on people brewing their own for personal use than they got in tax, and that few people were prepared to set up the equipment and mess about. I don't think for a minute they intended people to be able to fuel their vehicle from the shelves of Tesco un-taxed!. Greg

On or around Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:12:00 +0100, AJH enlightened us thusly:

IRTA transistorised.

On or around Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:40:53 -0700, Greg enlightened us thusly:

I've heard it said that you're better off robbing the bank than dodging paying tax.