Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmyfish
Yes there would be a price war. So lets say sainsburys (or other retailer), suddenly reduce there price say by 5p, why do others follow suite, not because they want to, its to stay competitive.
Same goes for if we all used one supplier, do you think the other suppliers are going to stand about waiting for people to arrive at their forcourt? No, they will reduce and entice business in that way. So what you say on this is total bollocks.
You are right by fuel may be blended by one company but with different additives for certain retailers, Shell fuel is different to sainsburys, so it dont matter to the blender where we get our fuel from, but it will matter to the retailer.
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There cannot be a war without weapons. The weapon they have is a 20p/litre margin. How do you think that there can be a war when all they have to play with is a few pence?
If fuel prices were a real issue we wanted to tackle, we would all go to the supermarket forecourts that are usually cheaper than the ones owned by oil companies. We don't so it, so they don't give a jot if one retailer, especially a supermarket, reduces the price by 5p. We would soon get fed up with queuing and go and pay more elsewhere. There is no incentive to remain competitive, because we the user aren't really interested in low prices, as we demonstrate daily by not all queueing up at the lowest priced forecourt in our area.
They have no need to be competitive because we do not care that much about the price we pay, as demonstrated by the fact that, whatever the price charged, most forecourts remain in business. Your argument has a similarly round shape!!
Fuel duty is 5% of the Government's tax take. Income tax is 30%, National Insurance is 20% and VAT is 15%. If you want to cut your tax bill, buy less and avoid the 15% of your income you pay in VAT, and not the 5% you pay in fuel duty.
When Callaghan's Labour Government lost power to Thatcher in 1979, the basic rate of income tax was about 30%, and the top rate was 83%. The surcharge on unearned income was 15%, so the top rate of tax was 98%. In total the Government took 42% of GDP in tax.
Today, the basic rate is 20%, the top rate is 50% (change to 45% in 2013) and the Government take 39% of GDP in tax. So, 10% to 45% less in income tax rates, but the Government revenue is only 3% down. Where do you think they made up the difference? You could always go back to having high income tax and low fuel duty, if you like...
Whichever way you cut it, Government takes less of our labours in tax than it did 30 years ago, so you have more to spend as you wish. They just get it a different way than they used to. I don't know anything else that has come down in the last 30 years, so remind me again how I am being ripped off?