MSE News: Further petrol price cuts at Asda bring RAC's predicted £1 a litre closer

Paul_Herring

fivetide wrote: »

Just a shame that prices of oil have dropped by a half but the price of petrol hasn't.

Never would, because, as I've shown, roughly only a quarter of the price of your petrol is affected by the price of oil (and as pointed out, not even that - since part of that quarter also includes refinery cost and profits by the petrol companies.)

The rest is government 'theft.' The excise amount per litre is fixed, and the VAT is based on the post-excise cost (yes - the government charges VAT on the excise in a practice colloquially known as 'double dipping.')

At best I'd expect a halving of the price of the raw stuff to result in, at best, a 12% reduction (in reality it would be less, since this assumes that all of that initial quarter would be affected by the drop - it wouldn't)

fivetide

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Never would, because, as I've shown, roughly only a quarter of the price of your petrol is affected by the price of oil (and as pointed out, not even that - since part of that quarter also includes refinery cost and profits by the petrol companies.)

The rest is government 'theft.' The excise amount per litre is fixed, and the VAT is based on the post-excise cost (yes - the government charges VAT on the excise in a practice colloquially known as 'double dipping.')

At best I'd expect a halving of the price of the raw stuff to result in, at best, a 12% reduction (in reality it would be less, since this assumes that all of that initial quarter would be affected by the drop - it wouldn't)

I never said that wasn't the case


I just said it was a shame

agarnett

EC Excise Duty Tables

Nothing remarkable about the UK system versus the rest. All countries collect tax. How they spend it is another matter, and that is a question for an apathetic electorate, not a faceless government whipping boy.

Why do UK pump prices not vary daily or even twice daily please?

Is it perhaps because someone, or most people, think we can't be bothered with the last 2p, 10p, 12p or 20p in the final price per litre? I think that is what sets us apart from other countries. We can't be bothered to improve it. We still heat our homes with electricity and wall boilers for Chrissakes! It's like the dark ages. The kings men and other more powerful war lords set and settle the prices and taxes and we huddle in our huts while rip-offs and pillaging happens next door, and are simply thankful when they don't come knocking on ours.

We are becoming a nation of peasants again - or maybe we always were.