The price of petrol.

Is there a breakdown of what the insane taxes you guys pay goes towards? Are the gax tax revenues used for everything (healthcare, welfare, etc...), or just stuff related to transportation? I'm guessing the money goes towards everything, but I'm curious.

 

I feel like I am getting it wrong but our petrol is 1.399 a litre for 91
Current exchange rate is $1NZ is 68US cents.

So around $3.59US a gallon here.

 

Which doesn't seem to stop oil companies like Shell making £1.5 million ($ 2.6 million) an hour in pure profit...

 

These are massive, massive companies, so if their profit is only a percent of a percent, the absolute numbers are still huge and make great headlines for the tabloids. Their turnover is a very big number. The things they own (like oilrigs) cost hundreds of millions, if not billions to build and run.

The oil companies make a couple of pennies profit on a litre of petrol, tops, where the government takes 30 times that in tax. Producing and retailing petrol is just about the least profitable thing oil companies do, and why you've seen so many petrol stations close down in the UK over the last 5-10 years. I don't think it's the oil companies that are the problem when looking at the price of petrol in the UK, because although they sell a lot of petrol, their profit margins are absolutly tiny when compared to most other industry and products.

Of course the ultimate problem is that we as a society have allowed ourselves to still be reliant on oil, instead of working strongly towards alternative energy production. This suits the big status quo for both the oil companies and the UK government coffers.

 

Yes it goes towards everything as the taxes are part of the federal budget and every year there is a new budget law which distributes those taxes ti various areas, that being childcare,healthcare, pension etc, all of which the states provide to you.

 

Don't say no to logic!

Oh, and to say something on topic, it's at times like theses that I like moving around in my "Public Transportation-mobile"!

 

The especially ironic thing about high petrol prices in the UK is that until very recently (i.e. this year) we were an oil exporter.

 

And high petrol prices are why you were an exporter .

 

Yes, you could be right. But what it means is that we're heavily taxed (if the total cost is 70% tax then the actual tax rate is more like 400%!) to buy petrol that was ours in the first place!