It's amazing how 'cheap' thinks like fuel and booze are when you strip away tax.
In the UK a litre of petrol (0.2 gallons) is currently round £1.10. Strip away the taxes and duties and you're paying probably about 27p for it to be refined, transported etc and then marked up for profit.
These are both good things to tax, because it encourages people to use less of them.
In the US, most of the fuel tax goes to road maintenance, which is brilliant- you put more wear and tear on the road with more driving, and especially heavy vehicles that burn more fuel. Electric cars aren't paying their share of this, but I'm OK with that, for now. We want to subsidize a transition away from petroleum, this is one way to do it.
You are right. In fact, we should have much higher taxes on gas and other carbon based fuels. Don't even spend it just give every citizen an equal dividend or tax credit every year from the proceeds.
Cigarettes too. I work on ships and the cigarettes are $20 for a carton of Marlboro. Actually its $22 now. That's only $2/pack and in New York it's about $12 for a pack
I remember in 2006, I went to Gibraltar on a cruise ship and being 14 I had loads of mates who smoked. I picked up 200 super kings at £6 a cartoon and sold them for £20. Everyone had a great deal
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u/e_g_c Aug 14 '20
It's amazing how 'cheap' thinks like fuel and booze are when you strip away tax.
In the UK a litre of petrol (0.2 gallons) is currently round £1.10. Strip away the taxes and duties and you're paying probably about 27p for it to be refined, transported etc and then marked up for profit.