Fuel duty changes
So the Government has delayed any fuel duty increases for next year and the year after. He's using a strange mix of taxation on exploration and extraction to fund a 1p/litre reduction in fuel duty.
Great~ish in so far as it goes, but that really isn't going to make a huge difference to the ordinary motorist.
He has, however, plugged a huge hole in his budget with the tax grab, and got some very good headlines, but the detail needs a lot closer examination to see just what additional room for manoeuvre he may have had.
It's all a bit smoke and mirrors, but perhaps underlines the huge cost of cutting fuel duty. The real driver for price change is the international price of oil; and until the middle-east stabilises (and how may times have we heard that?) prices are going to go up, and fuel at the pumps will cost more.
Great~ish in so far as it goes, but that really isn't going to make a huge difference to the ordinary motorist.
He has, however, plugged a huge hole in his budget with the tax grab, and got some very good headlines, but the detail needs a lot closer examination to see just what additional room for manoeuvre he may have had.
It's all a bit smoke and mirrors, but perhaps underlines the huge cost of cutting fuel duty. The real driver for price change is the international price of oil; and until the middle-east stabilises (and how may times have we heard that?) prices are going to go up, and fuel at the pumps will cost more.
2 comments:
Ah yes, the joyous consequences of saving the world. Print money > Sterling devalues > Oil, priced in Dollars, more expensive in the UK > the punters have to pay more lovely British Pounds to fill up. Rinse and repeat for any other imported commodity where there is inflexibility of demand.
As a matter of interest, did any of the pundits and talking heads give a back-of-the-fag-packet calculation of the new total tax take after the Budget 2011? Last figure I saw (admittedly last year) was around 38.5%.
I see on the news that some garages aren't reducing their prices as they bought petrol at the current price, and won't reduce it until they've sold that consignment. Why then, do prices go up in some places 1p one day, then a couple of days later another 1p, and so on. Surely they haven't sold that particular consignment in a day or so...or am I missing something in their argument?
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