so why do we pay like 70% tax on fuel when most EU countrys pay less than 40%?
The future of fuel tax
- Thread starter mattyprice4004
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so why do we pay like 70% tax on fuel when most EU countrys pay less than 40%?
Ahh, the real world dodge... Not raising duty is not the same cutting duty, and it's pretty blatant misrepresentation to claim otherwise.
This is especially true of fuel, where the vat componant has been rising steadily until this year due to oil price rises, so they certainly have been increasing taxation on fuel every year...
Labour have never been able to balance books, the fact that they are going to drag us into debt that is likely to be even worse than last time Labour were in power for any length of time (where the country was effectively bankrupt and we had to plead with the IMF) is not a surprise at all. However, the solution is to cut the massive inefficient state spending, not to raise taxes.
Totally agree, but labour our to thick to do that. They are just going to buy are way out of this recession, which wont work and we will be ******. We will then come under Torys for a few elections. who will have to sort out the mess by joining the euro and doing stuff the public hate. Which labour will then blame them for.
while labour remaining in power, this recision is just going to get worse and worse.
I think you various right-wingers are missing the point: any future Tory government will do exactly the same. "Fuel Tax Escalator" - ring any bells? In the incredibly unlikely event of the Lib-Dems getting power (by sharing or alone) - guess what - more of the same except probably worse. The only argument is likely to be over who puts the rate up fastest.
As I said, the only things that will prevent tax rises every year are a) an actual depression, or more probably b) a change to general road-pricing. And I'll bet that no matter which government brings that it, it will only cause a freeze, not a reduction.
M
As I said, the only things that will prevent tax rises every year are a) an actual depression, or more probably b) a change to general road-pricing. And I'll bet that no matter which government brings that it, it will only cause a freeze, not a reduction.
M
Yep that will 100% happen, The vat wont be put back to 17.5% either I think it will increase to 20%
Of course they will, it all comes down to balancing those books. Until you get a government which realises more things should be local control and that they don't need to controlled ever aspect of our life and need 10 managers for every 1 employee. Then public spending is only going to increase. Which means so will tax.
I can't help but think that if there was a radical shake-up of the civil service taxes wouldn't have to increase... they may even, dare I say, be able to fall.
I think in the long term, the Tory fuel stabliser will be a good idea. Sure, at the moment it would mean more expensive petrol, but when oil rises it should hopefully mean lower prices at the pump than before.
I think in the long term, the Tory fuel stabliser will be a good idea. Sure, at the moment it would mean more expensive petrol, but when oil rises it should hopefully mean lower prices at the pump than before.
Instead of road charging they should just scrap road tax and put it all on fuel, to me it seems the fairest way of apportioning a usage based tax on road users.
Why should Grandma Biddy pay £200 a year road for doing 2000 miles a year when Mr Average Commuter does 12000 a year for that same £200?
Of course I am putting aside the supposed reduction in congestion that the government proposes will occur should road charging be brought in, but we know thats utter tosh as regardless of a tax based on the road you use and time of day, peoples working hours won't change.
Why should Grandma Biddy pay £200 a year road for doing 2000 miles a year when Mr Average Commuter does 12000 a year for that same £200?
Of course I am putting aside the supposed reduction in congestion that the government proposes will occur should road charging be brought in, but we know thats utter tosh as regardless of a tax based on the road you use and time of day, peoples working hours won't change.
You're right, to a point. What they need to do is remove the punative tax on fuel, then put a tax on fuel related to road maintainance and social harm caused by the fuel only, ringfenced so it cannot be spent any other way.
Well, there are some costs incurred for car ownership irrespective of mileage in terms of social harm, not many, but some, mainly involving the construction of the car, and end of life costs. Whether it's better to put that as a front loaded sales tax rather than a yearly expenditure, I don't know.
One of the best traffic reduction measures would be US style yellow buses for schools, but that won't ever happen...
Agreed. All tax collected from transport should be used to improve both existing road infrastructure to make it as efficient as possible, and arguably more importantly, improve public transport to the point where it actually becomes a viable alternative to car usage outside of major metropolitan centres.
My office used to be 5 miles away in the next village, to take public transport there would take 2 bus journeys and at least 50 minutes, not to mention around £6 in fares.
Yep, it never ceases to amaze me how empty the roads are when the schools are off. To have a communal form of transport such as the yellow bus system like in the US would cut morning congestion massively.
thing is, if you dont support the top 3, you are a nazi (and loose ya job) or a green idiot.
Theres no choice really. the top 2 are exactly the same and the rest are laughable parties.
This. If you could get rid of all the useless dead weight from the civil service (my estimate from visiting such sites is around 50% of the workforce) then it would be much more efficient. It'd be cheaper to just pay them dole to sit around and do nothing all day than to pay them a civil servants wages to sit around and do nothing all day.
Unfortunately it seems impossible to sack someone from the civil service (unless you first email them that picture of Gary Glitter's Thai takeout), and also it would make the unemployment stats look bad (and lets face it no private company is going to hire the people I want to sack) so it's not going to happen.
Just look it up man, it's not at all hard to find this. Petrolprices has the information you need to confirm, though they ignore their own info and still like to maintain that duty has constantly increased. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has a really good paper on this too. It's a simple fact.
In what way is it not? If you get a pay rise below inflation, you'd be unhappy with that, because it would be a real world cut. In every meaningful way it's a cut, tbh nobody with a grasp of economics would argue otherwise. The only reason people don't like this argument is that they like to forget the cuts, because they don't fit a neat argument (or alternatively, they believe that the cuts were only a cut as a percentage of fuel cost, which is just wrong- a lot of people seem to fall into this one)
For something defined in absolute terms (ie it's X pence per litre, rather than defined in percentage terms), then keeping it constant is not a duty cut. There are no ifs, buts, maybes or anything else surrounding this idea.
The only thing that you can argue is that it's risen at less than the rate of inflation, but even that's debatable (I notice you haven't actually provided a source to back up your claim so far). But that's not a cut, it's just a slower than average rise.
I have in fact provided 2 sources. But never mind. The only way it's not a cut is if the value of money is absolute and unchanging, which everyone knows it isn't. Like I say, it's just economics.
The easiest way to turn this around is, as I mentioned, to think of it in terms of a pay rise or savings account- if inflation is 3% and you get a 1% pay "rise", that's actually a cut. If inflation is 3% and you get 1% on your savings, you end the year with more money but you can buy less with it, so you are poorer. Wealth is not measured in pounds, it's measured in buying power.
If I post up numbers I've done myself, the people who don't want to believe in the cuts just ignore them anyway, I've done it before. But here's the figures anyway. Between 2000 and 2007, tax rose from 58.6p per litre to 63.7p per litre. If it had stayed constant (ie, in line with inflation), it would have risen to 71p (obviously you can find variances in this amount by using different indices, but they will all give you an increase). So in fact, it was cut by 7.3p. These numbers direct from Petrolprices, which as you know was an anti-taxation platform so not open to accusations of misrepresentation I hope.
Soldato
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Unfortunately the STUPID quantity of fuel duty is now insulating us from the price cuts.
Unless duty is cut, we won't see less than 80p/litre. And I remember the country grinding to a halt in protest of lower numbers then this.
Unless duty is cut, we won't see less than 80p/litre. And I remember the country grinding to a halt in protest of lower numbers then this.