Andy Peters Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association
info@bhcta.co.uk www.bhcta.co.uk
VAT out of hell!
After reading some of the submissions from various parties for the government’s ‘Call for Evidence – Taxis and Private Hire’ I didn’t think things could get any worse. Then the next day I read that vampiresque Rachel Reeves, is looking to smack a 20% vat charge on taxi and private hire journeys that will drain the life blood out of the trade
A later report states that there is no intention to put vat on hackney fares, so I would imagine she thinks all PH companies have set fares with the company taking money directly from the customer. Or the driver collects the money from the customer and pays in all the money to the company, and then the company pays the driver. So, vat would be added to the set fare whichever way, the customer pays it
It appears that she has no idea of the different models that are used such as where the company merely acts as an agent and where drivers pay a set weekly fee and also where PHVs have meters just like hackneys do. Furthermore, some companies have mixed PH / hackney fleets. In addition to this, what will happen where there is a strictly hackney only company where an operator licence is not required?
There could be ‘Bob’s Cars’ made up of PHVs and next door ‘Pete’s Taxis’ made up of hackneys, where Bob has to apply and collect vat on fares but Pete and his drivers are happy because they don’t have to.
This is even after the recent Supreme Court case that ruled that operators/cab companies are not the ‘Principal’ (where based outside of London) and although it wasn’t a vat case this effectively clarified the vat position.
The taxi/PH trade is a massive part of public transport and should be treated no differently to trains and buses where those fares are zero-rated for vat and this should also apply to London operators as well.
It just seems yet another doom and gloom prospect for the cab trade to deal with… if it’s not one thing, it’s another!
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Call for evidence
Getting back to the call for evidence, at the time of writing this my own submission on behalf of the Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association has yet to be published online. I have had assurances that not all submissions have been processed to date via communications from the Transport Committee department. However, if you are interested in my contribution, then this can be found at:
bhcta.co.uk/call-for-evidence
Beware though, it’s eighteen pages long as I have taken the call for ‘evidence’ quite literally! Well, the way I look at it there is only one shot at this - although it doesn’t beat Uber’s twenty-three pages!
It comes as no surprise that the Uber submission backs the continuance of cross-border hiring to protect its own interests, which in-turn backs ‘predominantly out of area working’. This is because Uber claims it would leave “Over 50 thousand drivers unable to respond to demand”.
Let’s not forget that it is Uber that has caused all the chaos that we have had to deal with which has ironically given the government cause to look into a major upheaval of the trade.
Anyway, pay attention to the 50,000 figure because this is around the same number of national licences that Wolverhampton has issued. So, that’s Wolverhampton drivers sorted, who would then have to get licensed in the actual area in which they predominantly work.
I haven’t been through all of the submissions as yet, and to be honest, as I keep telling myself to get a life, I’m not sure that I want to based on the drivel that I have read so far. I noted that Unite the Union has got two submissions to date, and whilst I have my own issue with the GMB as an ex-GMB member, I feel quite smug that they have recommended the intended use policy to tackle cross-border hiring, and why? Well, I wrote the IUP for the GMB just before I left slamming the door behind me in 2020. This can still be found on- line floating around the internet ether.
However, from some of the submissions I have read it does make very depressing reading where the Deregulation Act 2015 has been blamed for where we are today with cross-border hiring when nothing could be further from the truth. I make no excuses for screaming out again that all the Act did was to clarify
OCTOBER 2025 PHTM
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