I dread the budget when it comes round every year mostly due to them increasing fuel duty.
Thankfully the Chancellor has stopped the automatic rise in duty that was due next week (inflation plus 1 penny on a litre = 6 pence this time round) that would have seen the price for a gallon of diesel go up to £5.90 in fact he even dropped duty by a penny a litre.
At the minute 60 odd percent of the cost of a gallon of diesel is tax meaning that roughly £3.54 out of £5.90 is tax.
To think that when i started taxi driving a gallon of fuel was about £2.80 and that was only 6 -7 years ago.
The new measure won't provide much relief but if it stops or even delays them worsening even a little they are most welcome.
The problem I see with this budget is that to pay for that penny cut and the shortfall, they're taxing the companies who provide the fuel. So they're taxing those in control of the raw material, the very same organisations who also are setting the base price. As with the banks, when there is a shortfall or cut in profits, it's not absorbed by the company, it's passed on in the price to the consumer. Really I reckon all that will happen is to play on the rise in demand petrol stations will drop the price for a month then the steady rise will continue.
ReplyDeleteThe government don't have the powers to make fuel companies absorb the loss and they don't have the money to absorb the loss either... so people in the end will pay the same/more, just the way the money gets to the people who are expecting it will change.
Its different here.
ReplyDeleteWe're paying about $3.50 for a gallon of gasoline and about 43 cents of that is federal tax.
Thats only about £2.35! I am so jealous
ReplyDeleteWe do have our own oil here, yet Obama refuses to tap it to it's full potential out of some misguided, utopian idealism. Link
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