Retirement with No Problem

Waterways News

Here is what we have been waiting for, announced at the Southampton Boat Show this morning, the decision by the powers above about our split on domestic and cruising fuel costs…

“Britain’s motorboaters got some good news this morning with the announcement that from 1 November a split of 60/40 for propulsion and ‘domestic use’ diesel will become the accepted standard at the pump.

Put simply, for every 100 litres purchased, 40 litres will be subject to the current rate of duty – 9.69 pence per litre (ppl) at 5% VAT – and 60 litres will be subject to full duty – 50.35ppl at 17.5% VAT.

This news comes after months of intense lobbying by the British Marine Federation (BMF) and RYA over an acceptable apportionment that satisfies all parties, including HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and fuel vendors.”

We are going to be able to self declare on that, which I am pleased about because I would prefer to work out my own split being a continuous cruiser obviously I do not use as much fuel for propulsion as hire boats or people that just use their boats at the weekend.

“Continuous cruisers may not declare 0% under these arrangements, even if they reside permanently on their craft, they must declare their actual intended usage for propulsion.”

Rest of the article here from Motor Boats Website

Bit more bookwork for me to have to do, but I don’t mind that.

I look forward now to reading all the debates about this once it has filtered onto the newsgroups and forums.  Now we have the figures we will obviously want to know how this is actually going to work when buying fuel.  Will we have to claim back if our proportion is different to the standard I wonder will be one of the major questions I think.