Of late, when you purchase a new tyre for your car or an ecologically 'dirty' product (such as a refrigerator containing CFCs), a proportion of the purchase price includes a levy by the manufacturers to pay for converting, recycling or making safe the end result of that product. You are being made to pay for the hidden cost of complying with government requirements concerning supposed threats from global warming and conservation. The debate over whether or not Global Warming actually exists is irrelevant because a whole new phalanx of government bureaucracy is using the myth to build an empire for itself and imposing unnecessary costs on business which will do little to solve the world's problems but which do increase the cost of everything you buy. Like the tyre manufacturers, most businesses embody these extra costs into the price you pay but that makes it impossible for you to see what you are paying for. The bean-counters within the British government have recently imposed a futher stealth tax in the form of an Energy Levy which is basically a percentage charge on top of power bills . Paraded as a method of persuading businesses to become more efficient and ecologically minded the Energy Levy is nothing more than a new stealth tax bringing the Treasury thousands of millions of pounds annually, none of which, as far as we can see, is ring-fenced for spending on ecological projects.
Just as the travel industry made a decision to itemise Journey Taxes so that travellers can see how much more they are having to pay to government over and above their income tax when they go on holiday ; just as the insurance industry decided to itemise the governments ever-ascending 'insurance tax' so you could see how much of your money was going into the Treasury's coffers in indirect taxation, we have decided to apportion the cost of government impositions separately on the basis that this is a fairer method than putting up prices and if every member of the public is made aware of it the government may not be so quick to play this card in future. The 1% levy added to the total of your order covers increased costs on energy, recycling and disposal of waste etc.. Regular clients will have noticed from their past receipts that this is not a new policy for us - we have always fully itemised the vat content of all sales so that customers can see exactly how much 'purchase tax' they are having to pay to the government.
Please note that because of our cosmic beliefs we are naturally predisposed to harmonising with nature and , long before conservation became fashionable, have for 30 years consistently followed ecological business practices including amongst many devices, the use of microtype for printed leaflets to save paper, reusing packaging, limiting the use of unrecyclable packaging, providing re-usable envelope labels, repairing instead of renewing, link ups with the Sacred Trees Trust, etc. Using Taoist principles anyone can attenuate to almost nil their affect on the planet and that would serve our world far better than the imposition of these unnecessary stealth taxes by government.
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