Saturday, February 25, 2012

No fuel like an old fuel

One of the main things which is driving the recession in the UK (apart from toxic debt) is the cost of living coupled to the lack of an increase in income for most taxpayers. The cost of living itself is driven by rising prices in practically all areas, though there is one common denominator in all of this, fuel. The government could in theory kick start the economy by simply scrapping fuel duty and although there would be a reluctance for suppliers to drop the price totally down to market price, the difference to hauliers and even food prices would soon become apparent. People would have more money in their pockets, so would spend more, businesses would survive, some might thrive and all it would take is one small cut.
 After all they are adding somewhere in the region of 60% (at least to prices at the pumps.
As of 15th November 2010 the price of fuel, the fuel duty and the VAT level are shown in the table below:

Type of Fuel
Total Cost at Pump
Fuel Duty
VAT
% of Fuel Cost that is Tax
Unleaded
118.7p
58.19p
17.68p
64%
Diesel
122.3p
58.19p
18.21p
62%
LPG
67.5p
31.95p
10.05p
63%

H/T  http://whatgas.com/car-finance/fuel-duty.html

In 2007 fuel duty raised in the region of £25 billion, a reasonable chunk at 5% of government income...

H/T Wikipedia

But a 5% cut in the governments spending is surely an achievable target?
Of course there are those wiser in economics than I out there, there might be very good reasons why we cannot do this, though it strikes me as being quite worthwhile.
Of course it's probably illegal to do so because of the EU or some ridiculous green laws.
Still, it's a thought isn't it?


4 annotations:

Anonymous said...

If Only!

You're expecting government bureaucrats to even consider 'cutting' their income, you and I know that's never going to happen. If there is a universal law it states that 'governments always and only increases the amount they take from the population they supposedly represent', with the qualifier 'unless forceably prevented from doing so'.

The telling one for me was to view the graph for expenditure. Just how much of that could a reasonable, and unbiased (read: corrupt with self-interest, otherwise known as a politician), tax-payer cut without a second thought? Me, I think I can get about 2-3 hundred million off immediately, and a bit more with a little thought.

I'm still waiting for the day someone, somewhere starts asking what it is we actually want, and should allow, the government to 'do for us'. Don't worry as one of those weird libertarian types, I'm not holding my breath.

As an aside, I read on another blog, a debate about how many of todays headlines, if read way back in the 70's and 80's, would have seemed like science fiction. The question was raised, 'why is it that of all the sci-fi futures we could have had, we seem to be rushing headlong into only the dystopian nightmares envisaged by so many writers'? I wonder, as some others do, if it is that politicians see books such as 1984, The Crazy Years, etc. as instruction manuals instead of fiction.

I despair, I really do!

William said...

They won't cut because they want to appear to be green.

Trooper Thompson said...

Aye, William. They see fuel duty as a sin tax.

opinion prole said...

We need a law requiring all price labels to show the amount of tax included. When people start to see how much they are actually forking out to the parasite that government has become, they will demand change. Then we need every year a statement of what the tax money was actually spent on. Then we need a vote to pass the proposed budget every year. Just common sense, keeping tabs on the money, exposing fraud and waste - what's difficult about that?