Car fuel, ridiculous amount of tax!

axisus

Yeah, we all know it, but I just landed on a website with the info below. I'd never particularly thought about it before, but as well as an enormous amount of the cash going to the govt, we are getting taxed on the tax as well! Such a total rip-off!!!

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Think about the price of diesel at around £1.39 a litre at the pump.

The retailer gets just 5p of this, with a further 53p going to the fuel company for finding, extracting, refining and distribution.

The rest of the 81p of the price you pay at the pump goes to the HMRC in the form of Fuel Duty and VAT.

So a 60 litre fill up of diesel means £83.40 to you

• £  3.00 - Retailer / Garage
• £31.73 - Oil Company
• £48.67 - Tax

Incredibly £6.95 of that £48.67 tax is the VAT on the Fuel Duty! A 20.0% tax on a tax.

Panama_Jack666

This is another reason I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

CabbageCat

I guess it adds a lot of money into the government coffers. Money that is needed (to power the bloated, inefficient state behemoth blah blah). If it weren't coming from fuel it would have to come from somewhere else. I suppose it's at least a semi-optional tax - my poor friends don't drive so they don't have to pay it.

CabbageCat

Oops. Doppleposten.

Panama_Jack666

If the fuel companies decided to give the fuel away for free, the same 60 litre tank of Diesel would still basically cost you £50 in tax!

CabbageCat

 

Panama_Jack666 said:

If the fuel companies decided to give the fuel away for free, the same 60 litre tank of Diesel would still basically cost you £50 in tax!

That must make you mad as hell.

Cirrus

This is why I thought it was so generous of the treasury to delay the next planned fuel duty increase. So kind of them!  >:D<

Phil_aka_Pip

gets my goat too, but:

we all talk about the bloated overweight state blah blah but as soon as the government instigates a "cut" we all scream loudly and say NO!

ICBM

If they didn't tax fuel they'd just have to get it from somewhere else, most likely income tax or VAT. Which would you prefer?

At least taxing fuel can have a direct effect on behaviour and allow you to some extent to reduce the cost - buy a more economical car and drive it less and more sensibly. But given the number of inefficient cars on the road being driven badly, I don't think it's having that much effect yet - ie fuel may still be too *cheap*. (Maybe a little effect, since fuel sales are apparently down compared to a few years ago.)

I sympathise with people who live in places where they need their car for daily life and can't really change that though, so there isn't an easy answer...

CabbageCat

Phil_aka_Pip said:

gets my goat too, but:

we all talk about the bloated overweight state blah blah but as soon as the government instigates a "cut" we all scream loudly and say NO!

Two different "we"s, I'm afraid. Poor old government has loads of different "we"s to juggle, poor buggers.

Phil_aka_Pip

@CabbageCat ... true dat.

Cirrus

ICBM said:

But given the number of inefficient cars on the road being driven badly, I don't think it's having that much effect yet - ie fuel may still be too *cheap*. (Maybe a little effect, since fuel sales are apparently down compared to a few years ago.)

Fuel economy matters to me since I do 25k+ a year and lots of motorway driving. If I potter along to and from work at 56mph behind a lorry (you have to find the right lorry though haha) that equates to a saving of about £50/ month in fuel vs doing the typical 70-80mph thing, all for a difference of about 10 minutes in my commute time. The key is I think that if you pay for your own fuel and do lots miles, you might care.

Typically though during commuting hours there's lots of people in company cars with fuel cards. They don't care about their MPG. If they have to pay anything for personal use of the company car it's usually a set cost per mile. Then there's people who just use their car a few times a week to drive about town/ go shopping. For them the difference between filling up the car every month vs every 6 weeks isn't really enough to impact on their consciousness.

Then there's the fact that for most people, they just don't drive enough per year to offset the initial cost of buying a different car to get better economy.

PolarityMan

Phil_aka_Pip said:

gets my goat too, but:

we all talk about the bloated overweight state blah blah but as soon as the government instigates a "cut" we all scream loudly and say NO!

I dont

bertie

Cirrus said:

Typically though during commuting hours there's lots of people in company cars with fuel cards. They don't care about their MPG. If they have to pay anything for personal use of the company car it's usually a set cost per mile. T

not 100% correct

I have a fuel card,  BUT for our co. it works the other way.........they have a set milage rate - lets say 15p per mile - which, based on the "makers claimed MPG" and  your monthly recorded business milage, and checked against 'on line route finders'  - they deduct that from the spend on the card anything else is deducted from my salary each month. So the rate per mile, is for business mileage, not private.

I do care about MPG, cos the rate they 'charge'  means I need to drive quite frugally indeed, otherwise I end up paying towards the cost of that journey.  

Cirrus

Fair play, knowledge imparted! I know it changes between companies, I'm just going on what i know about mates with company cars.

bertie

also dont forget there are three grades of co. car.  (as well as people using their own cars for business use)

business need

benefit

benefit with fuel

usually with two separate sets of "own use" rules,   Business need car drivers do tend to pay a set monthly charge (with or without fuel included)  benefit do not.  

We used to pay for fuel ourselves and claim a set rate back off the co.  This got canned about 3 years ago, now we all have fuel cards. 

ESBlonde

It's one of the few taxes that can be said to penalise the rich, if they drive about in Range Rtractors or super fat BMWs at high speed they consume more Fuel so pay a greater tax. However conversely the rich can afford the latest model vehicle with its computer controlled fuel widget and so possibly save something (if they even care).

The losers in this are those that live in the countryside, are poor and need (for whatever reason) an off road vehicle or larger van for business. Theymay not have ready access to low cost supermarket fuels and they need the vehicle for pretty much everything with no option of public transport.

Still at least all that fuel tax, VAT and vehicle excise duty goes to make our roads adequate for the traffic flow and smooth surfaced.

(Some of the above may not be true).

Ianpdq

The only problem with this much Tax on fuel is it puts up the prices on everything because everything is delivered by road

frankus

Tax on fuels effects everyone: food and goods travel to shops in trucks, before that raw materials would have been transported to factories or processing plants and before that raw materials would have been extracted. If the raw materials couldn't be extracted in the UK (usually due to cost) they'll be flown in from other countries.

Labour found lots of indirect methods of taxing the country - that we didn't mind when it was introduced because it seemed someone else was footing the bill but many of these stealth taxes have crippled the economy - reducing the worth of the money in our pocket, increasing the basic costs of essentials and creating a reluctance to spend or invest until the full extent of the shockwaves created by the stealth taxes are understood.

holnrew

I think diesel should have a rate cut for businesses.

Drew_TNBD

frankus said:

Tax on fuels effects everyone: food and goods travel to shops in trucks, before that raw materials would have been transported to factories or processing plants and before that raw materials would have been extracted. If the raw materials couldn't be extracted in the UK (usually due to cost) they'll be flown in from other countries.

Labour found lots of indirect methods of taxing the country - that we didn't mind when it was introduced because it seemed someone else was footing the bill but many of these stealth taxes have crippled the economy - reducing the worth of the money in our pocket, increasing the basic costs of essentials and creating a reluctance to spend or invest until the full extent of the shockwaves created by the stealth taxes are understood.

Dear Mags.

Please give Frank his account back.