I don’t know about you but I really, really begrudge paying more than £1.07 per litre. Not that exact figure mind you, but really anything more than £1. It’s a disgrace. To give you some idea, our fuel is the most expensive in Europe. Not because it is expensive anyway, oh no. It’s all due to the government.
You see, oil recently hit $100 per barrel recently. It’s fallen lower, gone up again, dropped a bit then finally we’ve seen an increase up to $135 per barrel – a figure pretty much unheard of. It has gone lower, but my, that’s a high price. So where are we now?
It doesn’t matter whether you’re in Saudi Arabia or Finland, oil prices are roughly somewhere around $90-100 dollars for a barrel. All being well, if it is the fault of the companies, then everyone in the world is facing this stupid level of cost. Clearly, however, that’s not so.
In the US, consumers have been angered at the fact that their gasoline has gone up to $3 per gallon – I must say, bloody shock horror for the poor dears eh? Meanwhile, here in the UK we’re looking at £1.10 per litre! Clearly then, it’s not necessarily just the oil companies who are scoping out our wallets and licking their chops.
It’s still a little strange to me that we do this. After all, you’re talking about fuel costing as much as a bottle of water – the elixir of life. It’s also the same as two Greggs pasties, but that’s by the by. In seriousness though, we really should know better. You’ll see what I mean when I break down the costs.
Apparently, according to petrol prices.com (it’s worth taking a look to find your local cheapest fuel, it does diesel too), if petrol was 90p a litre then 47.1p would go on fuel duty, plus another 13.4p on VAT. Another 23.2p pays for the petrol itself, and 6.3p goes to the retailer.
So, what do those figures tell us? Well, the math is simple in that around 70% (give or take) of the cost of petrol goes to the government. Now, I might be stupid or something, but this makes me angry. How can such an essential item be so heavily taxed?
Some of the astute amongst you will be shouting from the back (the commonplace location of the astute and the noisy respectively) that I have, in a way, answered my own question. Well let me put it to you – isn’t it about time, in this day and age (and global, competitive economy) that we crushed any taxes that were above 50%?
I don’t think it would take very much for the government to listen. If all haulage companies acted in concert (as a number of companies did a few years ago) with a large number motorists to blockade main roads then they would have to do something. Peaceful demonstrations are the way forward folks – I know that I drive more than 36 miles per day and it sure does annoy me.
Perhaps the biggest laugh is that we’re not the only ones suffering. Granted, big oil companies post great profits (most of the time), yet anything out of the North Sea is required, by law, to pay 50% corporation tax. Imagine that was your wage. Wouldn’t make you happy now would it?
Now, unless we lower the taxation, I can’t see the price of fuel coming down. If you’ve been following the news you’ll know why I’m saying this. If not, here’s it in a nutshell – resources aren’t running our per se, but the resources that are easy to access and refine are. This means that only the sources that are harder/more costly to get to are left. Add to that the emerging economies of China and India (don’t kid yourselves, they’ll all want powerful cars too) and the fact that we’re not investing enough in alternative fuel and we’re heading for an expensive future – and possibly a disaster.
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