As always, the Daily Mash brings us the straight dope:
OIL company executives were last night heading to undisclosed locations amid speculation that consumers were about to make the link between high petrol prices and corporate profits.
I expect they worked really hard to get where they are though. You know, good on ‘em.
…
No, wait… AAARGH. FETCH ME MY NAILED CLUB.
–c.
4 Comments
Grrr… don’t get me started.
Obscene as they are, the vast majority of oil companies’ profits aren’t generated by the forecourts…
…sadly, neither the Tories nor LibDems are pledging to cut fuel duty, so Messrs Brown and Darling (surprisingly) haven’t mentioned it.
My little 106 diesel (don’t ask) now costs £50 to fill up - a year ago, it was only £37.
And we still have road tax.
Harrumph. X-(
I was talking to my sister (BP) about this. The tax structure in fuel is insane. BP is taxed at 80% of the value of the crude oil as it comes out of the ground. Then, when they sell either the refined or unrefined oil, they are charged another 40% corporate sales tax. Then, if someone deigns to make the stuff into petrol, the consumer is charged another 85% in tax. Then, remember, that BP is the biggest company in the UK and its staff all get hammered for the usual income tax as well. That’s a lorra, lorra tax!
Let’s remember too that in 2005 Shell made no profits at all in its retail division, and the trend of very, very low profits off forecourt sales of fuel continues.
Now, companies like BP have to make big profits as they play a big, big game in terms of investment in finding new oil and development of new fuel technologies to ultimately replace oil. That said, I accept that they are not blameless in the fuel price issue, but we would do well to remember the colossal amount of money that is taken in tax from the point at which the oil is in the ground until the point you burn it with your accelerator pedal. The UK government is never going to step in to do anything about BP and Shell while they are coining it in to that degree.
Ross, did you know that it costs me the same to fill up a V6 Jag as it does for you to fill that 106 (only I have to do that every week!).
Nige, thanks for that - I can now justify buying a V6 Jag
Only downside is that I fill up once every 6 weeks (and get 500 miles to the tank)!
Fuck knows what the ‘poor’ gits with the V8 standard engines have t ocontend with!
The additional thing that has got my goat today is the discovery that they have abolished the 2006 build-year limit on the road tax. Oh great. So if you are doing the sensible thing and driving an older car such that it does not have to be recycled (with onward environmental cost) and then replaced by some piece of shit shipped tax-free from a country that is Kyoto exempt (with onward environmental cost), then you are penalised by having to pay tax at £455 per year. Fuck off. This devalues the car by £1,000 and will likely trigger a a rush on scrapping cars … to where, exactly?
Now I am a pragmatic chap, but with this shit going on, I am royally glad that Labour got bum-fucked the other night. Anal pain to Brown and Darlng.
N.
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