Petrol Prices

[turbobloke]

Grumfutock said:

turbobloke said:

As I had suspected but then doubted, thanks

I should also add, dirty thieving bds!

I should concur!

[Mr Whippy]

TwoLeadFeet said:

Mr Whippy said:

TwoLeadFeet said:

Mr Whippy said:

Win win for everyone... for now.

Not for those working in offshore oil production...

It'll go back up. Businesses can live off savings for a bit I suppose?

Yes, the oil price will go back up, but no one knows when, how quickly, or to what level. In the meantime businesses who work in oil & gas production will have to survive with a significantly reduced income as projects and maintenance work gets cancelled & postponed, and irrespective of "savings" or other funding streams which may be available, costs will be trimmed back which means salaries reduced & jobs cut.

Just saying like...it's not win win for everyone

Of course, I agree. I suppose win win for everyone was more a consumerist point of view.

Personally I don't care for it being too cheap. Just stasis against inflation would be ok for me... ultimately these drops are just the precursor to stuff that won't be good for us... so make the most (as a consumer) of the low prices now!

Dave

[Vaud]

Mr Whippy said:

Of course, I agree. I suppose win win for everyone was more a consumerist point of view.

Personally I don't care for it being too cheap. Just stasis against inflation would be ok for me... ultimately these drops are just the precursor to stuff that won't be good for us... so make the most (as a consumer) of the low prices now!

Dave

Have a read of this:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/will-falling-oil-pric...

[Grumfutock]

Grumfutock said:

Well if the rate continues to drop at the speed it is then we may see WTI at $50 by Wednesday! Brent will follow a few days behind as it tends to be a few £ higher on average.

Good news all round for petrol heads! Now if chemicals can fall at the same rate then race fuel will be cheaper to!

And there it is WTI below $50

[jimmyjimjim]

Just had to nip to the post office, pulled out of the garage to the low fuel ping, so went and filled up.

51.14 litres, 19.85 GBP. Quite pleased as the last time I filled up, I'm pretty sure it was about 40% more.

[Seventy]

jimmyjimjim said:

Just had to nip to the post office, pulled out of the garage to the low fuel ping, so went and filled up.

51.14 litres, 19.85 GBP. Quite pleased as the last time I filled up, I'm pretty sure it was about 40% more.

Thanks for that

[simoid]

Supermarkets having another round of price cuts today/tomorrow. Fun fun.

I wonder if any of the electioneers will decide to stick a couple of p on the litre to pay down some national debt....

[Gerradi]

I will raise a smile when the pump shows litres are higher than the Pounds/pence...

[oyster]

simoid said:

Supermarkets having another round of price cuts today/tomorrow. Fun fun.

I wonder if any of the electioneers will decide to stick a couple of p on the litre to pay down some national debt....

Well a pump price drop from £1.40 to £1.00 will lose the treasury more than 6p per litre.

They'll have to tax that back somewhere else.

(unless the improved economic growth from lower fuel costs feeds back into higher tax take to offset this).

[voyds9]

Perhaps they should encourage us to drive more to make up the short fall.

[Grumfutock]

oyster said:

Well a pump price drop from £1.40 to £1.00 will lose the treasury more than 6p per litre.

They'll have to tax that back somewhere else.

(unless the improved economic growth from lower fuel costs feeds back into higher tax take to offset this).

Not so. Recently we have been buying far less fuel so the treasury has been losing money, with the price dropping then the sales will increase and earn the good old HMRC 58p per litre plus VAT.

[Vaud]

oyster said:

Well a pump price drop from £1.40 to £1.00 will lose the treasury more than 6p per litre.

They'll have to tax that back somewhere else.

(unless the improved economic growth from lower fuel costs feeds back into higher tax take to offset this).

I thought the tax was fixed.

[Mr Whippy]

Vaud said:

oyster said:

Well a pump price drop from £1.40 to £1.00 will lose the treasury more than 6p per litre.

They'll have to tax that back somewhere else.

(unless the improved economic growth from lower fuel costs feeds back into higher tax take to offset this).

I thought the tax was fixed.

The VAT goes down proportionally though.

I'm not sure economic growth goes up though does it. You either spend more on petrol == petrol industries happy. Or spend more on other stuff == those industries happy.

People can't physically spend more/less than they were before.

Well, apart from that 6p tax, but like has been said that'll likely go out the wallet some other way in the coming months if the oil price stays low.


Dave

[mjb1]

turbobloke said:

Presumably fuel duty is still 58p per litre so HMG will rake in even more (and the VAT on top) if petrol and diesel sales grow on the back of low oil prices, reversing a 6-year fall in sales totalling around 25%.
If the duty is a percentage rather than a fixed amount however...

Vehicle fuel has a fairly inelastic demand though - we consume pretty much the same no matter what the price is. Sales have fallen by 25% because vehicles are getting more efficient, more people are buying diesels and smaller engined cars.

Vaud said:

I thought the tax was fixed.

The duty is fixed, but the VAT is 20% (oh, and they charge VAT on the duty as well - tax on a tax). The treasury will be losing tax revenue hand over fist, and that hasn't been budgeted for, so will be causing some headaches. They'll get it back one way or another.

Also, didn't the current govt. introduce a fuel price stabiliser - a buffer amount that they can shift up and down to compensate slightly for variations in pump prices? I think that's still low (to compensate for the high prices when it was introduced), so they'll be increasing that any time soon. Also a good time (for the govt.) to increase fuel duty.

[Mr Whippy]

mjb1 said:

I think that's still low (to compensate for the high prices when it was introduced), so they'll be increasing that any time soon. Also a good time (for the govt.) to increase fuel duty.

Where high and low prices are just arbitrary dependent upon recent public perception of high or low

I agree, this is a perfect time to slap on excessive taxes, then when it goes back up they'll trim some back after a few months and everyone will be

'wow, great, 3p off a litre, only £1.40 again now!'

Job done, tax take up, people think they've got a discount after it's gone back up


Rule 1 of government taxation is that they screw you on fuel taxes no matter what.

[turbobloke]

mjb1 said:

turbobloke said:

Presumably fuel duty is still 58p per litre so HMG will rake in even more (and the VAT on top) if petrol and diesel sales grow on the back of low oil prices, reversing a 6-year fall in sales totalling around 25%.
If the duty is a percentage rather than a fixed amount however...

Vehicle fuel has a fairly inelastic demand though - we consume pretty much the same no matter what the price is. Sales have fallen by 25% because vehicles are getting more efficient, more people are buying diesels and smaller engined cars.

That may be the case broadly speaking, but there's little doubt that high fuel prices moderate road use by the poorest car owners and the point remains that total sales have decreased by about 25% over the past 6 years for a combination of reasons, with loss of revenue to HMT. Projections suggest that fuel duty revenue (currently around 1.7% of GDP from data available) will fall to 1.1% by 2029.

It would be revealing to see this data (pdf) for each of the last 10 years in a single table - suitably presented!

http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation...

[Borghetto]

voyds9 said:

Perhaps they should encourage us to drive more to make up the short fall.

Better still, remove all speed limits.

[Mr Whippy]

Borghetto said:

voyds9 said:

Perhaps they should encourage us to drive more to make up the short fall.

Better still, remove all speed limits.

They should scrap road fund duty and move the cost to fuel tax... and put VAT on the fuel only.

Scrap a huge government system that costs millions to operate and do it all via fuel for effectively free.

It's fair for very low consumption road users.

The hike in price would distort what constitutes cheap/expensive fuel.

Dave

[unrepentant]

Robbing bd gas station owners! Oil fell again yesterday but we were due 6in of snow last night so the price of gas went from 1.69 per gallon to $2.15 at every gas station in town.

Fortunately I filled up the Range Rover on Sunday and the gas price will be back down by the weekend.

[Grumfutock]

unrepentant said:

Robbing bd gas station owners! Oil fell again yesterday but we were due 6in of snow last night so the price of gas went from 1.69 per gallon to $2.15 at every gas station in town.

Fortunately I filled up the Range Rover on Sunday and the gas price will be back down by the weekend.

Sorry but at those prices I hope your next st is a pineapple.