Should we politely decline any discount the LBS offer and proudly state that we pay full price for our right to cycle?!
Crankarm's already said his thoughts on reductions. The issue is what he's already said about it. I think that there's a strong case for having a reduced rate of VAT on bicycles of certain cost anyway, but of course as I've said before just about every other scheme anyone could possibly think up would involve more work by politicians than the current scheme. Until that time (probably never) what crankarm said was pointing out the perversity of higher rate tax payers when he's probably more aware than many here that there are huge groups out there that could do with other schemes.
As much as you may not like it, money is a massive incentive to the majority of people, and if that makes the difference between more bikes and less cars on the road then I certainly don't have a problem with it.
Crankarm's like me. He's (like a fairly small number of other people on here) a lot nearer the bottom of the pile than many of the (extremely affluent) people on this forum. Now the scheme is deeply flawed, but I don't mind it particularly. I didn't get any of my bikes through C2W, only one was bought when I was working (second hand off this wonderful forum) and the rest was when I was unemployed/or a student and not working at that particular time. I'm not particularly bothered by that, they were all worth it even had I paid more for them.
However, I'm also aware of how many people there are out there who would simply jump at the chance of getting interest free and spread payments over 12 months even for a sum as 'small' to other people on here as £200-300. I'm pretty sure that had people I known been able to get on the scheme they'd have bought bikes in the £300-500 range and transformed their cycling from very slow MTBs to superspeedy decent bikes. That's quite sad really, as some have fallen by the wayside.
In the end, the scheme's undoing and saviour will be the scheme itself. The £1000 which nearly all schemes stick to will as has happened already due to component inflation make the scheme more mainstream and the number of higher rate taxpayers getting n+1 bikes out of it will get bored of it and the relative declining value. The scheme will then in its maturity be left to probably cater for the 'more deserving' and growth in cycling we'll have in the coming years. And as more employers join or run the scheme(s) and travel plans mature (2nd gen ones) and so on and so forth. By that time we'll be starting to win the travel plan battle in other arenas and we can argue about other things instead.
So we should do everything we can to get these newbies to join a scheme or get their employer to.
And contrary to what was said about disposable income, the IFS and a few other studies would actually probably agree with crankarm. However as past masters of microeconomics they'd probably point out the various things said on here about encouraging the buying of bikes. And that even applies to people with pots of disposable income too.