The key words here are "could", "proposed", and "we are looking at options." Plus, that article is from the Guardian. An absolute non-story, telling us nowt.

Dave, I suggest you stop looking for silly reasons to bag the government, using that biased rag as backup, because frankly, you're starting to look bitter, twisted and out of date, and you're making us all cringe.

A good remap should do both. Mine gave me an extra 35 ps, improved torque and improved fuel economy

Well, as I obviously need to spell it out, it would be (especially if you want to use it to buy fuel) much more accurately described as "our already partially taxed but which is about to be taxed a shedload more" income.

You may say there's a distinction between the tax already paid on earnings, and the further tax paid when the net is spent on fuel, and as a matter of semantics of course there is, but in real life if the fuel purchaser earned (say) £200 gross and £150 ends up straight back in the Treasury, the fact he kept a bit of the tax in his pocket for seven minutes on his way home till he filled his motor up is not really of much financial help to him.

It's not just that, though, since governments have gone out of their way to impose hundreds of stealth taxes all over the place, in addition to the biggies on fuel, fags, booze, and continue to do so. Including tax on tax. And the not-so-stealth tax, council tax.

In reality, the tax you pay on your income is not the whole truth. It is little more than a weak starting point for "negotiations", where you have a bit of choice to a limited point, but no bargaining power.

If you wanted to call it "preliminarily taxed income" then I'd go along with that, but it is just the first instalment.

On what vehicle though?

2.0l diesel Passat 4Motion.

It doesn't necessarily follow that an increase in power leads directly to a fuel penalty, although much is down to how the vehicle is driven and the prevailing conditions. If a driver decides to use the extra power available to get to his destination faster, there will be a fuel penalty. If however he uses the extra power to prevent the engine labouring, he'll get a smoother and (usually) more economic return. I rarely go above 2000rpm and have returned up to 54mpg on a run - not bad for a 4WD

Yes, you obviously do need to spell it out as you've failed so far...

It's not - as you strangely put it - 'laughably called'. It actually is called that as that's what it is; money that can (and will) be taxed further.

It's not difficult to understand.