This is old hat, turned up in 2000 when the first action against fuel prices started. It's also rubbish! By the last count, there were only 60m of us in this country, so how would an e-mail sent to 300m people be any good?!! Oh, and only 30m cars!
From 10 Jan this year, fuel duty is 50.35p per litre. The rate for biodiesel and bioethanol is 30.35p/litre. Roughly speaking, the refinery gets about 30p, the retailer about 5p, and all that has VAT added. So, 85p (ish) plus 17.5% VAT gives us the magic £1 per litre.
HMG gets about 65p per litre tax (so, 65% duty, not 97% as mentioned earlier!) by adding a tax to a tax, and the smallest slice goes to the guy who swipes your card - except that the guy swiping the card is also the guy doing the refining, in a lot of cases!
In the USA, there is no fuel tax, so the doubling of crude oil prices has gone straight through to the pump price - $1 a gallon when all this started (2000), almost $3 a gallon now. In the same time, our pump prices have gone from 87p a litre to £1. Whinge all you like, I know which system I prefer!
Fuel tax raises about £23bn a year, out of a total Government budget of about £427bn per year, out of a GDP of about £1 trillion. I know it feels like a rip-off, but it is a flea-bite compared to income tax (30%) NI (20%) VAT (17%) and Corporation tax (8%).
If you want to get really cross about something, get cross about the fact that people who weren't born here, but live here, can claim non-domiciled status for tax purposes. This means they pay virtually no tax on their incomes (because they declare it as overseas income) - Abramovich included. The 'non-doms', as they are called, are worth about £100bn, on which they pay £14m in tax; about 1.4%. And in this last Statement, the Government said they would tax them - at £35,000 a year!
Oh, and in case you are wondering, there is no fuel tax on the aviation fuel for their private jets...
28-10-2007
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