If you can't afford £100 tax, should you really have horses?

little_flea

little_flea

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Ok, infectous subject, I know, and I disagree with the horse tax as much as everyone else as it seems pointless and just another exercise in money grabbing - but for people to say that "there is just NO WAY I could afford that" frightens me a little.

If you really can't rustle up £100 if absolutely necessary, should you really have horses? Vet bills spring to mind... Would you not be able to pay for the vet if your horse was hurt/ill???

I understand that you don't WANT to pay this tax as it doesn't seem necessary (I don't want to pay it either) but that is a different matter IMO...
 
* gathers some hobnobs and waits for everyone to come steaming in on this one*

IMHO no, you shouldn't have a horse if you can't afford it, same as not being able to afford other unexpected bills.

That said, I have signed the petition and don't think we should have to pay it.
 
That £100 spent on tax is £100 less you've got to spend on vet bills.
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Well.....its the same as people not having feet/teeth done as they can't afford it....or scrimping on forage. I agree.....what would happen in an emergency?

That said.....I don't see why I should have to pay it. Theres no tax on any other pet is there?
 
I don't think people are saying they can't afford it just that they don't want to pay it and they have enough to pay with farrier etc. without this being lumped on us as well!
I don't think they are suggesting they can't pay vet bills!!
 
Yep, I fear i might make myself unpopular with this one... and I will of course sign the petition as well... but having horses is a luxury, not a necessity, and if you can't afford to provide all necessary care for your horse it could be detrimental to the animal.
 
I think it's different if people have more than one horse - £100 is usually found easily enough, but if you have 3 or 4 horses £300 or £400 to find in one lump sum is a lot harder.
As for the insurance thing, it's spread out to only £30 (what mine is per month anyway) per month, which again is easier to find than a £100 lump sum.
I think some people are over-reacting with their comments "I'll have to sell my horse" etc, when they would be able to find it, it just might be tough. With redundancies etc, there is no doubt some people wouldn't be able to pay it, but I think most could.
 
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That £100 spent on tax is £100 less you've got to spend on vet bills.
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I totally see your point - but what if you have to call out the vet unexpectedly TWO times in a year??
 
I think it's more of a case of most people do have 'emergency' cash for thier horses if need be, but if you have to start paying out extra large sums like that, then it will be eating into those funds.
And I know id happily 'FIND' the money to make sure my horse had the vet if he needed it but not just for the goverment to take!!
 
Yes but the same thing applies - for goodness sake, why would you have 3 or 4 horses if you are in an insecure financial situation? Madness. (and obviously we don't know, but as with most of these tax things, i am pretty sure they would allow for payments to be spread out over instalments)
 
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I totally see your point - but what if you have to call out the vet unexpectedly TWO times in a year??

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Shoot it.
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There is a charge for that though isn't there
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for me its not a matter of being able to afford it and I agree that if you have a horse you shouldn't be thrown into a panic about having to pay a £100 tax.

For me the point is why should we allow ourselves to be an easy target on the assumption that horse owners can afford to pay it. Its just another sign that the horseworld is perceived as being all about class, money and elitism and as we all know, the grass roots of our world isn't like that at all.

I haven't seen any justification of why the horseworld should be taxed in this manner. Its just someone taking £100 off me for no good reason and giving me no benefit in return.

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Hmm I get what your saying completley but that £100 is MY shoe allowance for the year to spend in Topshop lol!!!!!

We get taxed on everything already don't we rugs feed tack its all got VAT on it - maybe you could buy savings stamps from the post office like you can for your car .... Thats a point will we have to go to the post office with our logbook (Passport) insurance and MOT (Vets cert) to say we are road legal tee hee
 
But have you considered that if you have to pay £100 up front as horse tax, then that is £100 that can't go towards things like vet bills. So for example, I always keep £115 to hand 'ring-fenced' as that's what my insurance excess is. If I were strapped for cash, then that's where my horse tax would come out of. Hence, the welfare of my horse would be compromised.

I agree in principle and it sort of ties into the whole notion that if you try to do horses on the cheap, the usual sufferer is the horse.. That's not to say that people shouldn't buy £200 horses but I would never sell my horses for that amount because the sort of person who can't afford to pay more is more likely to be stumped for cash when things go wrong.

But I can only really answer for me and my own so I don't presume to make those decisions for anyone else.
 
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for me its not a matter of being able to afford it and I agree that if you have a horse you shouldn't be thrown into a panic about having to pay a £100 tax.

For me the point is why should we allow ourselves to be an easy target on the assumption that horse owners can afford to pay it. Its just another sign that the horseworld is perceived as being all about class, money and elitism and as we all know, the grass roots of our world isn't like that at all.

I haven't seen any justification of why the horseworld should be taxed in this manner. Its just someone taking £100 off me for no good reason and giving me no benefit in return.

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Well said.....in a nutshell.
 
I'm sure most people would rustle up £100 from somewhere if they really needed it for their horse - whether it be a credit card, delaying paying a bill, going without something else. The point is surely that if you pay this £100 in horse tax (by delaying paying a bill, etc etc) then you STILL might have to come up with more for an unexpected vet bill or whatever - and then where does the money come from? It does make you that bit poorer and less able to meet the expenses that your horse needs.

While in an ideal world we would all have a few hundred at least put aside for unexpected expenses, the truth is we generally don't as immediate needs are more important.

I think the more important question here is whether it is justified to pay a horse tax, which is intended to cover the expenses for Defra in dealing with and controlling disease outbreaks, or whether this should be covered by the taxpayer in general.

There seems to be more of a move in general - not just from Defra - in pinning the costs of specific activities on individuals rather than spreading these costs across the general population. A case in point is a recent prposal to charge your car insurer for ALL the costs of an accident if you are involved in one - including police time and resources, and so on. However, these costs are already covered by road tax (my friend used to be the analyst responsible for calculating exactly what the total cost of all road use is, and apportioning it across all cars and lorries). Billing for all the costs if someone is involved in an accident would effectively be double charging.

What do we think? Do we believe that the tax is actually necessary - and that the money would reach the right place? If I really thought that it woukld go to be used specifically for managing horse diseases more effectively I might be more willing to pay it.
 
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Yep, I fear i might make myself unpopular with this one... and I will of course sign the petition as well... but having horses is a luxury, not a necessity, and if you can't afford to provide all necessary care for your horse it could be detrimental to the animal.

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To some people it's not a luxury it' there livelihood. And I can see how you think it shouldn't affect a horse owner with one horse, but when it comes to someone with 5 horses or more.. I can see why people are complaining.

It's an unjustified expense and governments way of thinking they can put in measures to control an epidemic. But if it happens it's going to happen with or without preventative measures. And what will these measures be do you think? More expensive vaccines? It'll be a continual expense with or without the road tax. Personally I think it's a ridiculous way for the government to look like they're doing something.
 
I think its the fact that its a big one off payment that many dont have spare- I insure my horses so when the vet comes out its not an issue- and I pay my insurance monthly so it doesnt hurt my pockets as much. I have two horses so would have to stump up £200 per year which I would rather spend on other things such as field maintainance. We were actually talking about renting a field of 4 acres thats next to our field and getting another 2 yearlings (eventually we want to breed competition ponies) so when I read this I thought to myself if I DID actually get round to breeding them and had 10-15 ponies of all ages etc I would be forking out £1500 per year which is a lot. Then its the issue of if you sell the horse mid-year does the new owner then pay etc etc. It may put people off buying youngsters as they will be paying out £300 in taxes before the animal is useable as a riding horse....
 
I must admit I agree totally with Little_Flea, we have at one point had 4 horses, we weren't exactly struggling every single month to make ends meet but it wasn't easy. So we sold one and one went out on loan...as it wasn't fair on the horses for us to be thinking that if something came up, we wouldn't be able to afford it. Admittedly we are back up to 3 now but one has a sharer who virtually has her on loan really and covers over 50% of her costs.
I honestly can't believe that anyone with horses genuinely wouldn't be able to afford an extra £2 a week....insurance can go up that much in a year, feed seems to go up aout £1 a bag every year, etc etc. Farriers round here seem to sometimes randomly put prices up - one suddenly went from £57 to £70 a set apparently last year!
And I know insurance should cover vets bills, but as an eg, our 3 year old was kicked last week. Fortunately it now looks less serious than we initially worried it might be (already 2 vet visits down the line and a set of xrays). However if he had been in for 6 weeks with fractured splint bone, our bedding and haylage bills would have rocketed as he is quite a grredy filthy pup when in 24/7.....I do think it is important that people take this stuff into consideration with horses, as insurance wouldn't have covered his piggy appetite!

HOWEVER I don't see why we should pay an extra tax, as someone pointed out we already pay passport fees, VAT etc etc...and I will sign any petition/go on any march that says as much.
 
I do agree with you little flea, I have been one not to be totally against the horse tax (more so when it was less money!) from the outset.

But at that sort of level am concerned about those such as RS, and in particular what happens to the animals that aren't worth £100
 
So do we know that there would be no way of paying in instalments? A lot of you seem sure it would definitely be a one-off payment?

And again, I don't at all think it is money well spent, or that DEFRA are justified in doing this - my point was just that horses ARE a luxury and not a necessity, and if you have responsibility for an animal you have to make sure you can pay for a certain amount of unexpected things, whether you agree with them or not. You may also think that vet's call out fees etc are extortionate, but that is just the way it is.
 
Agree with kylie. We can all find the money if necessary for vet bills etc. But I for one sacrifice alot to manage my existing day-to-day running costs for my horses. We are not all made of money.

To say that it is the same as scrimping on feed and shoeing is wrong. That's the whole point. Adding the tax onto the normal everyday costs will mean more people WILL scrimp on feed and shoeing!
 
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To some people it's not a luxury it' there livelihood. And I can see how you think it shouldn't affect a horse owner with one horse, but when it comes to someone with 5 horses or more.. I can see why people are complaining.



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That argument is null and void though because why on earth would you be in business if you couldn't make profit, and if £100 makes that much difference to whether you are in profit or not, then you probably need to re-think your business plan. I run my own company, and I certainly wouldn't be shoved into a loss-making situation if I had to stump up £100 for every survey I did (as an example) - what would happen though is that the costs to my clients would increase proportionally - probably by £110 to cover admin too. So I don't think you can argue that just because someone does horses for a living, the government shouldn't tax them - yes, for them horses are not a luxury, they are a business, and like any other business, they must be profitable or go under. In fact I'd argue for the professional it is easier to deal with the £100 tax as there will be someone to pass it on to along the line somewhere, whether that be through an increase in the cost of the horse to buy, an increase in training costs, whatever.

As for the rest of the general population - no I don't think we should be taxed, same as I disagree with student loans, but I also think that horses are a luxury and if you can't find £100 (or equally if you whinge about being broke because you have horses) then the answer is simples - get rid of the horses. You don't need them to live, and you are not broke, you simply choose to spend a large proportion of your disposable income on something akin to burning £10 notes! Being broke is not having any disposable income to spend on luxuries like horses, being broke is choosing between feeding your kids and the bus fare home. It isn't being a couple of hundred quid (or whatever) down because you happen to have an equine in your life.
 
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As a student with a horse 100 is alot of money to give for no reason and no benefit. My horse wants for nothing it is me that goes without...

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thats just it isnt it- £100 for what? what do we actually get from it? ANd yes it is us that end up loosing out. I was also wondering if shetlands/youngstock on the forests/generally semi feral ponies will end up being given to charities because their uninterested owners dont want to stump up £100 for them.
 
Most people have a 'contingency fund' of some sort and budget for routine vet/farrier visits worming etc, which all add up, especially if you have more than one horse. We have three and I do not relish the idea of spending £300 EVERY year on a completely unnecessary expense, especially as one has been retired for the last 4 years, and while I don't begrudge a penny of what she genuinely costs us, (she certainly doesn't owe us anything after all that she has done for us over the years), I certainly can't see that paying £100 a year to keep a retired 'useless' horse is a good idea and I can definitely envisage that this extra expense might influence people when they are considering their options when a horse can no longer work. I am also sure that the rescue centres will struggle to find an extra £100 per horse per year. That could mean that fewer horses can be accomodated by them.
I for one do not understand the reasoning behind this tax, it just seems to be another example of this government buying into the idea that all horse owners are rich!
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They want to try it!
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I might be happier about this tax if I thought that the money raised would be spent on improving bridleways to provide access to more off road riding.
 
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