I've been robbed !

Heh. It tells me I am eligible for working tax credit! Oh joy! How much? It says I am entitled to..

Whoop!

On or around Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:14:52 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

I found a thing about "are you eligible for tax credits?" and on the face of it I may be, provided they don't count that I live with the parents, and that they have pensions and so forth.

Some years ago I was living in my grandmother's house and paying rent, and unemployed, and I couldn't get housing benefit 'cos I was in a relative's house, notwithstanding that I paid rent and had a rent book to prove it.

Good question. The online "Do I Qualify" doesn't mention or ask anything about others apart from your "partner", singular. Parents are not your "partner"...

Right bar stewards at times aren't they? But I can see why they do it. 'Cause the spongeing toe rags and chavs would all be living in relatives houses paying "rent" with completed rent book to "prove it"...

The news reports of the last few days almost seem designed to talk up fuel prices. US saber-rattling over Iran can't be helping, and now there's trouble in Nigeria.

Yes, closing Grangemouth and the Forties pipeline will cost money, but it's putting a lot of extra value on the fuel between refinery and final delivery.

On or around Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:15:58 +0100 (BST), snipped-for-privacy@zhochaka.org.uk ("David G. Bell") enlightened us thusly:

another good excuse to put the prices up. I see they're up about 2ppl AGAIN this week on my shell card.

Austin> what's stupid about that? They're the ones who decide how Austin> much tax to put on the fuel, and said tax altogether is Austin> probably about 3/4 of the price by now - if you take into

Oh, it was 3/4 of the price 10 years ago. It's more like 85% now.

And they're laughingall the way to the treasury - for every penny the oil companies put on a litre, they take another fivepence in tax. What a bunch of crooks.

Andy

Cite or utter bollocks?

As previously posted:

The percentage tax actually falls as the oil price goes up as the duty is a fixed amount per litre, currently 50.35p/l on ULS unleaded and diesel.

So: 120p/l 100p/l 80p/l

Duty 50.35p 50.35p 50.35p VAT 17.87p 14.89p 11.91p ----- ------ ------ Taxes 68.22p 65.24p 62.26p Oil 51.78p 34.76p 17.74p ====== ====== ====== 120.00p 100.00p 80.00p

%Tax 56.85% 65.24% 77.82%

Do you know what the duty was when the price was 80p litre ?

Steve

On or around Thu, 01 May 2008 15:40:31 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

There's also the VAT which is on the fuel part of it, and is a fixed percentage, not to mention the corporation tax on the oilcos profits... which I see are up by something like 40%. It's not only the government that are crooks.

On or around Thu, 01 May 2008 16:24:48 +0100, Steve Taylor enlightened us thusly:

I don't. I doubt it was much different, though.

Betcha its around 5-7 p

Steve

Check my maths by all means. B-) The VAT shown *is* the VAT on the oil and duty combined. ie the full retail price. I laid out the table so that the taxes were together.

Aye, and I'm sure the oil co's accountants are busy as we write ensuring that as little corporation tax as possible will be paid. The cost of production has not risen anything like the cost of a barrel of oil, which is determined by "The Market", so of course the oil companies "profits" have shot through the roof.

I was paying around 83p/l in early 2005 of which 49.02 was duty:

On or around Thu, 01 May 2008 21:44:22 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

I could see that, actually, I wasn't faulting your maths. However, the fact remains that our diesel (especially) is the most expensive in Europe and has been for some time, which doesn't actually help anyone in this country be competitive.

I'm sure they are. I also know how much an independent shell filling station gets per litre...

I'm not necessarily arguing that fuel should be cheaper. However, I'd like to see a lot more of the "take" both oilcos and governments being fed back into credible alternatives: as one example - the development of halophile oil crops and large-scale salt-water irrigation of desert land to grow them, so we don't get a conflict between oil crops and food crops.

Agreed and the base cost is the pretty much the same everywhere in europ= e.

You mean their profit or how much they pay the distributer? Either or bo= th would be interesting.

When digging for the duty rate in 2004 last night I was surprised, no ma= ke that shocked, at how much HMG gets per annum from fuel duty. =A325 Billi= on, yes that is billion not million. Well over 20% of the Treasuries income.= I was so shocked that I have choosen to ignore it until I have the time to= dig a bit deeper and confirm it.

Be nice. I see the US are just about to push $770m into helping with foo= d prices, I've not read what they are actually doing with that money but I= can't help feeling that there is a certain amount of closing the stable =

door after the horse has bolted. The development of other renewable ener= gy sources would be good or even decent, national, everyone gets (not just =

OAPs or those on benefit) energy conservation measures to at least curta= il demand if not decrease it.

We are on a collision course between energy and food supply and comodidi= ty market economics. I just hope the bottoming out isn't going to be too ha= rd and that only about 50% of the worlds population end up starving to deat= h rather than 99%+ that could if the bump is a hard one.

Well, down here in the Antipodes our diesel has no excise content* other than 12.5% GST (=VAT). Current price is about $1.55/litre which with an exchange rate of 40p to the NZ dollar gives a price of 55p/litre exclusive of any taxes. There's probably a wee bit more transport cost in getting the oil to us, and our only oil refinery charges over the odds for refining but it'll be close enough for a comparison.

I used to aim for about 4p/litre when I ran an independant here, but the realities of competing with the company owned stations meant I was normally working on a margin of about 2.7p

And they will get SFA company taxation income - the oil companies run their accounts such that any "profit" is made in a suitable tax haven where one of their holding companies is based.

That's about right. Serious isn't it ? Plus everything else they screw us for.

Steve

On or around Fri, 02 May 2008 08:37:24 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

How much they make. It's well under 5ppl - why d'you think there's that "no cheques under £10" everywhere, it's cos the fee for banking the cheque wipes the profit on the fuel.