Petrol Up Again - Anyone Know Why?

[Utah 01]

I see that petrol has gone up 3p/l in one swoop; I've not seen any other newspaper or media headlines about fuel price rises so what's the excuse this time other than the manx cartel have summer holidays to pay for. Cynial - moi?

[lectro]

Yeah I've noticed of late that petrol prices have slowly crept up again.

[triple7]

Yeah I've noticed of late that petrol prices have slowly crept up again.

 

 

There is a bit of lag but every event in the middle east causes the price of crude to rise. There is an even bigger lag in it coming down again.

 

These increases are compounded by the Tax and VAT at the pump.

[AlexMcC]

Crude Oil is around $70 A Barrel again.... it was down around $50 a few months ago which is why petrol prices dropped.

[Silentbob]

we are still on average paying about 8p per litre more than the UK

[mojomonkey]

we are still on average paying about 8p per litre more than the UK

 

I'll take an 8p per litre difference over the income tax difference anyday.

[Albert Tatlock]

For a car that does 10K miles per year and gets 30 miles to the gallon, it works out about £120 on a difference of 8p per litre (miles per litre = miles per gallon *0.22).

 

Not much you may think, but on 20,000 cars that difference is around £2.5 million a year extra collected and on 30,000 cars £3.5 million extra.

[mtj73]

Has it gone over the 1 pound per litre again? Not been on the Island for a few weeks.

[mtj73]

For a car that does 10K miles per year and gets 30 miles to the gallon, it works out about £120 on a difference of 8p per litre (miles per litre = miles per gallon *0.22).

 

Not much you may think, but on 20,000 cars that difference is around £2.5 million a year extra collected and on 30,000 cars £3.5 million extra.

 

Yes and the cartel will tell you that it is the cost to bring the stuff to the island, and doesn't include commercial Diesel and heating oil as well, all of which are more expencive than the uk, Oh and petrol will probably go up again for TT as well.

[Utah 01]

So what happened to that enquiry by Quentin MHK into Island energy pricing (and the fixing thereof- oh! wash my mouth out!)? Another paper tiger exercise?

[=^..^=]

Personally I'd like to see two prices at the pump - how much the petrol company gets per litre and how much I'm actually going to pay for it.

 

But then I'd also like to see goods pricing done the way it isn the US and canada where sales tax (I.E vat) is added onto the price on the shelf.

 

We would be less likely to put up with the amount of hidden taxation the UK govt decides we have to pay if those two things happened...

[Declan]

That's a such stupid idea - I'm surprised the Government haven't introduced it. It would just be a way for retailers to make out things are cheaper than they are.

 

I don't care what the notional pre-tax price is. I want to know how much I'm going to be charged if I buy something. I don't want to be doing percentages.

[=^..^=]

Thats why retailers might have to put two prices - for people who aren't as clever as americans and can't work out percentages. Personally I am capable of working out 6% GST or 12% local sales tax in some states or even 8% if I was in B.C. I am also capable of working out 17.5%..

 

Something costs as much as it costs so how would a retailer make it out to be cheaper than it is ?

 

If you could buy a hoover from Wollies at £100 + tax or the same hoover from the MEA at £99 + tax its easy to see which one is cheaper. Or at least its easy for me.

 

How many people here whinged about BP making £3 billion profit ? When the govt gets somewhere in the region of 80% of the money you pay for a litre of petrol how much did they make ? Think about it - were you complaining about the wrong people ?

 

(the following is a worst case scenario and the figures may not be exact but they are just there to illustrate a point. If anyone wants to work out the actual figures then crack on. I have better things to do with my life than sit here and spent two hours researching the figures)

 

For every tenner I earn the govt takes its 9.4% NI, then it takes its 18% tax leaving me with £7.24. If I now buy something that costs exactly £7.24 I then pay a further £1.08 in VAT.

 

So from my original tenner that I earned the govt have left me with just £6.16. So for every three hours I work the govt decides it is going to take a hours worth.

 

And god forbid I spent it on beer, wine, fags or petrol.

 

In fact lets buy some petrol ! I'm estimating here but its about 80% goes on duty so in reality only about £1.23 of my original tenner went towards paying for petrol. The govt decided to tax me the grand total of 87% !

 

Thats why I get time in hand for overtime instead of being paid - I have no wish to gve the govt one penny more than I have to.

 

If you are happy with paying the govt that level then fine. I'm not and I'm pointing out that maybe people would start asking more questions if we were aware of just how much we give the govt from our paypacket.

[John Wright]

And you forgot that the government taxed your employer so that to pay you £10.00 he also had to pay the Government £1.10

 

So the math becomes for every £7.24 you have in your pocket the Government has already taken £3.86

 

Low tax ecomnomy, the IOM, tax haven, go on make me laugh.

[Chinahand]

The taxation points are interesting.

 

The IOM is quite simply not a low tax economy - as a percentage of GDP the state is very dominant, and when you add in its influence on the labour market and planning its even more distorting.

 

BUT - they do provide a service. Are people really saying they'd like to abandon public health care, or education, or reduce welfare to get lower taxes?

 

These are huge public issues - its easy to complain about taxes, but honestly finding away to reduce them without creating equally dangerous distortions isn't easy. Imagine if people had to pay for their health and social insurance care individually rather than progressively - ie individual insurance schemes, not NI. For some it would result in a massive drop in payments - for many others a huge increase.

 

Swings and roundabouts and revolutions!

 

I personally don't see the state as being a very efficient provider of services - which makes me think about how to contract them out - BUT the progressive principle seems vital for social stability - how do you make the end user the customer when they rarely pay the correct price for the service - its almost impossible. And how many people really care enough about these services to take a real interest in how much it costs.

 

At the moment most of us are happy to leave it up to 'King Tony Brown of Castletown and his mob - basically unchanged since the last election for all the talk of revolution. Each year the state takes a bit more - a good thing? - or just jobs for the boys? There's alot of complaints on the forums about the Island's old boy networks and jobs for the boys, but I very much doubt if anyone would be brave enough to propose anything radical - we'll just play at the edges of what the UK parliament does - and claim to be independent.

 

Anyway, apart from the fact the cost of petrol is 80+% tax, this has very little to do with the cost of petrol, so I'll shut up, but for me its a fascinating issue.