Fuel Protest

[Konan555]

Well they can start with Shell and BP. Who, last year, turned enough over to be eligable for a government 'supertax' but where let off.

[Rave]

Thats not the issue, the issue is the 70pence tax per litre that we pay!

It's in the governments interests for the price to keep rising to be honest, as the tax they get also rises as a percentage etc.

If it's taxed per litre it makes no difference to the government what the final retail price is- if anything they'll get less revenue as people buy less fuel.

[CocoPops]

If it's taxed per litre it makes no difference to the government what the final retail price is- if anything they'll get less revenue as people buy less fuel.

Surely it does??

50pence per litre has less tax income than 90pence per litre?
The percentage value stays the same, so hence the final income goes up?

If I bought an apple at 10pence and added 50% tax, the final retail value is 15pence and the government get 5pence of it.

If that apple then cost 20 pence, the final retail price is now 30pence and the government get 10pence of it.

Therefore it is in the governments interest for fuel price rises!

[jimborae]

The thing is is that fuel is an essential item, so it doesn't matter, to a certain extent, how high the tax rate is on it. People will still pay becuase they have to. Until there is a viable public transport system in this country this will remain to be the case.

Therefore any increase in the cost of fuel only adds to inflationary pressure in the economy thus driving up prices. So personally speaking I think a high rate of fuel duty is counter productive, inflationary & unfair as it hits the less well off harder than the wealthy.

[Timmy!!!]

Yup, and if there was more oil in the world it would be less of a problem, and if there was a new energy source discovered that was clean and cheap and easy that'd be good too.

Actually development on hydrogen fuel cell cars has become much more apparent recently, with many manufacturers interested in this new technology.

The cars take in hydrogen and 'pollute' water vapour - thats it!

The only problem at the moment is how to get hydrogen, its expensive but i'm sure prices will reduce as popularity increases. Obiously there are problems at the moment like the way hydrogen is made (using fossil fuels) but cleaner methods using solar power etc are available. I really can't wait for these engines to become mainstream.

As for petrol, you may want prices to be lower, but it is never going to happen.

Info:
http://www.ecoworld.org/Articles/Hyd...el_cars_EW.htm
http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item10.htm

[BroadbandPlacey]

3 words -

About Bl**dy time!!!

85p per litre is crippling me even whilst getting a respectable 38mpg

[DaBeeeenster]

Surely it does??

50pence per litre has less tax income than 90pence per litre?
The percentage value stays the same, so hence the final income goes up?

If I bought an apple at 10pence and added 50% tax, the final retail value is 15pence and the government get 5pence of it.

If that apple then cost 20 pence, the final retail price is now 30pence and the government get 10pence of it.

Therefore it is in the governments interest for fuel price rises!

If you look here:

http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/fuel/

at the bottom of the page has the following:

Unleaded 47.10 pence per litre
Diesel 47.10 pence per litre
Super Unleaded 50.19 pence per litre

There is a FIXED duty on petrol. The change in pump price has no effect on the amount Mr Brown gets in his pocket.

Another lie propagated by the head-in-the-sand pro car lobby.

[5lab]

Surely it does??

50pence per litre has less tax income than 90pence per litre?
The percentage value stays the same, so hence the final income goes up?

If I bought an apple at 10pence and added 50% tax, the final retail value is 15pence and the government get 5pence of it.

If that apple then cost 20 pence, the final retail price is now 30pence and the government get 10pence of it.

Therefore it is in the governments interest for fuel price rises!

nope its taxed per litre rather than per cost - so if it costs 3p/litre or 30, the tax will be the same.

incidentally, france is about the same price as us, having been much lower for decades. think how they feel!! (although, in fairness, diesel is much cheaper over there).

If it's taxed per litre it makes no difference to the government what the final retail price is- if anything they'll get less revenue as people buy less fuel.

yes, thats true. as people drive less, the government will make less money, but at the moment there are still many more miles driven per person than ever before, as more people are driving which more than compensates for the less each person is actually driving.

saw an article about electric scooters yesterday - while quite expensive to buy (£5k) they do 0-50 in about 7 seconds (nippy by anyones standards) and would get to 100mph if not limited to 100kmph (for tax and milage reasons i believe). a single charge (2 hours) will last one for about 50 miles, more than enough for most commutes, and they cost a whopping.. 0.5p/mile in lectricity.. that is so incredibly cheap compared to 10-15p/mile that most cars do...

[Konan555]

Obiously there are problems at the moment like the way hydrogen is made (using fossil fuels) but cleaner methods using solar power etc are available. I really can't wait for these engines to become mainstream.

Nail on the head....

[Flibb]

I could be wong on this but I think that duty + VAT is paid on petrol.

example form another website

According to the Department of Transport, a litre of LRP (lead replacement petrol) cost 81.4 pence on average in 2003. On that amount, consumers paid 48 pence in fuel duties and a further 12.1 pence in VAT.

[Fox]

There is a FIXED duty on petrol. The change in pump price has no effect on the amount Mr Brown gets in his pocket.

Really? And there was me thinking VAT was charged at 17.5%. That doesn't seem like a fixed rate to me?

The more fuel costs, the more money Mr Brown makes in VAT..

[CocoPops]

If you look here:

http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/fuel/

at the bottom of the page has the following:

Unleaded 47.10 pence per litre
Diesel 47.10 pence per litre
Super Unleaded 50.19 pence per litre

There is a FIXED duty on petrol. The change in pump price has no effect on the amount Mr Brown gets in his pocket.

Another lie propagated by the head-in-the-sand pro car lobby.

OK, so DUTY is fixed, but what about VAT?

[5lab]

granted, they could cut the tax in order to boost the sale, but why would they want to? and it begs the eternal question, if you're not getting taxed on fuel, then where *SHOULD* the money come from? the country will pay more or less the same amount out, and the money has got to come from somewhere - if the place it is coming from also encourages drivers to stop driving so much (which is better from the environment, better for conjestion etc) then why isnt it a good thing??

finally - this figure of 300litres per day in a truck - now i worked as a subcontracter for waitrose for ages, and their trucks averaged, over a year, 9.8 mpg. for the sake of argument, we'll call that 10 miles a gallon, or, being linient, 2 miles per litre. to use 300 litres a day the driver would have to do 600 miles a day - thats gotta be 12 hours of actual driving - which i'm pretty sure is against a good few regulations..

[shiato storm]

oil problems in the east (rich arabs wanting to get richer by charging even more + the US p*ssing around to jack prices up a touch = UK oil prices go up.

[DaBeeeenster]

Really? And there was me thinking VAT was charged at 17.5%. That doesn't seem like a fixed rate to me?

The more fuel costs, the more money Mr Brown makes in VAT..

My mistake.

Having said that, this argument could be applied to pretty much every product in the UK. It's not the government's fault that oil prices are rising.

I'm still yet to hear a reasoned argument as to where people think the money should come from.

[iranu]

I'm still yet to hear a reasoned argument as to where people think the money should come from.

Why can't the government be more efficient with OUR money. Do more with less. Why should they continue to increase the tax burden (as a percentage of GDP) year on year?

I want the government to do less not more. People are much more efficient at spending money than the government. Pick up a copy of The Guardian and look at all the non jobs being advertised in the Employment section -that's where the money goes.

Fact: We have the cheapest fuel in Europe BEFORE tax.

Fact: We have one of the highest prices for fuel AFTER tax.

http://www.aaroadwatch.ie/eupetrolprices/ February figures.

Rising oil prices do not really hit the driver. It's the percentage of tax levied that raises the price unequally.