B'stard Brown

Grr! I'm in the middle of fighting off yet another re-run of the Yorkshiremen sketch in another group, and you come along and Brian me!

On or around Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:37:25 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

I can just about remember a huge fuss and bother when it got to 50p per gallon...

1974 oil crisis I should think. Everyone making loud comment about how they wouldn't be able to run their car.

On or around Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:45:06 -0000, "Rich B" enlightened us thusly:

tax credits are not available to everyone.

instead of having a fantastcially complicated system to return some tax money to some people, they could of course scrap it and just have a simple tax system which charges a bit less.

1972 fuel crisis (I think) was when it reached £1.00 a gallon. LR launched the Range Rover into a market that should have been impossible with fuel price. I just goes to show how much the cost of fuel effects things when "must have" is working!

Richard

no they couldnt, cos then they couldn't justify two lots of civil servants where one would do! One lot to collect, and then another lot to reprocess for the credits.

Mind you, I suppose that if the idea comes up to be sensible, then a third and possible fourth set of civvies will be required to decommission the existing system, and find appropriate jobs for all the unemployed civvies

Sensible government - not in my lifetime :-)

Si

Four lots, the third to figure out what the f*ck happened to the borked tax credits system, and the fourth to investigate who to pin the blame on!

On or around Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:58:56 GMT, "Vertuas" enlightened us thusly:

and income tax cuts don't happen 'til next year.

'course, WRT crude oil prices, the effect on the price of petrol in this country is very small. Well over half the ppl price at the pump is duty or tax, and of the remainder, only a smallish amount is the actual crude oil - I'd bet that it's under 10p per litre - and all the other costs are the same whether the crude is cheap or expensive.

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message > 'course, WRT crude oil prices, the effect on the price of petrol in this

Very true. It annoys me when people start slagging the oil companies and their profits, only the other day someone was on about them 'coining it in.' _Always_ remember that the included in the price of road fuel is about 75% tax, (duty and VAT) it's the gubbinsment and not the oil companies that are responsible.

Julian.

And that that profit doesn't just get spent on a massive piss-up down the pub - it provides the working capital for the next round of exploration, which 'aint cheap, and paying the tax man - most results are stated "before tax".

Richard

>

I've met a few garage owners as I've always lived in small villages, and they've always moaned that they don't make much profit from the fuel sales, which is why they all try to be mini-supermarkets these days. The little outfits with the high fuel prices and tiny shops are still using fuel sales as their main profit point, hence the high fuel prices. I'm assuming that's not just a tear-jerker story of course.

It's no tear jerker - that's why most rural garages have stopped selling fuel or closed. One of our customers closed the pumps when his margin fell below *1p* per litre - and don't forget Corporation Tax is payable on that 1p too, and it had to pay for insurance and saftey inspections/equipment as well.

Richard

Also it is not the oil companies that choose the per barrel price - that is done by the (futures) traders in the stock markets across the world.

Lizzy

In news:uqNMh.16026$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe6-gui.ntli.net, Julian wibbled :

And remember the Oil companies do not get paid for collecting the tax on behalf of the exchequer, merely threatened with all sorts of mischief if they don't. The same is true of course with that other moneyspinner VAT.

But think of the armies of accountants, lawyers, civil servants (to say nothing of entire government departments) that would be put out of work - and which we, as taxpayers, wouldn't need to support.

It's far too sensible an idea for the UK - just leave it to the Latvians etc.

I've got an even more radical idea - the Tax Man should get involved with something like Quasar Accounts (an Open Source accounts/stock control/POS systems running on Linux/PC) so that a UK tax approved version can be produced, and guess what...... NO accountants at all, and NO squabbling as everyone would be able to see how their tax was calculated, and be able to examine files for fiddles and point out *excatly* where any errors are - even remotely!

Now that really *would* save the country a fortune and a lot of time and wasted effort. Oh, sorry, forgot, jobs for the boys and all that .....

Richard

You're obviously getting on OK with it then!

Except the system won't be run by civil servants, it'll be run by contractors, who will be paid more. However since the contractors are a service that is being bought in, it comes from a different (i.e. non-pay) budget, and they don't count as staff, so they can be seen to be achieving a reduction in the Whitehall head count.

Adrian

I've never had a problem with them, though it's almost heretical for small businesses to say so. Even a VAT inspection was fine, since all the records are up to date. What does irritate me is the assumption that after doing the business for 14 hours a day it's assumed that I still have plenty of time to then do the governments work for them with no reward. I don't know many Civil Servants who would do 80 + hours a week for £150.00, and then even consider doing more unpaid for someone else, yet they demand that we do! If they got a package sorted out, all I'd have to do is put the numbers in and press the button. Plus, of course, to do it they'd have to sort out all the grey areas once and for all, which would have the effect of making everything so much easier and understandable, and since everyone would be singing from the same hymn sheet, scams like Enron, the mobile VAT fraud etc couldn't happen as the system would flag them up almost immediately.

Now, Companies House on the other hand.......

Richard

we were holidaying on the Scilly isles at the time, where the garage on the island was already charging £2.10 a gallon

Good job the place was small enough to walk around most of the time.

Stuart