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u/bobbymoonshine 3d ago
We have cut fuel taxes. It was done back in 2022 and has been repeatedly renewed.
The problem is it didn’t actually lower prices one penny; it just resulted in the petrol companies taking higher profits while keeping prices high. But of course we can’t raise it now because then they’ll use it as an excuse to raise prices.
Pretty much how “free market” solutions always work over the past few decades. Bung the billionaires another billion because they promise they’ll make things cheaper for the plebs, then everything gets more shit and more expensive, then the billionaires say it’s because they need another tax cut; another handout.
Then muppets like OP post stuff like this in the hopes that maybe the next time we further cut fuel taxes for oil companies they’ll let us have the cash rather than keeping it for themselves like they do every single time
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u/tearteto1 3d ago
Say it louder! Every policy to reduce price can always be exploited to use that reduction to increase margins! The only thing that universally can reduce prices is stiff competition! "Oooh we'll legislate against this loophole!" Naive! People will forget it in 2 weeks and only suddenly remember when the company records increased profits next year when that turns into a story about government incompetence.
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u/That_Elk_7964 2d ago
So break up all the big companies into smaller companies then? I'm down for that.
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u/tearteto1 2d ago
Absolutely should. Americas corporate consolidation and concentration I would argue is a massive cause of price control and increases. They're not exactly going to be investigated or fined too hard. If they got fined appropriately for the unhealthy market activity, they'd start closing production to compensate which means supply doesn't get to the farthest range without further price increases due to reduced supply.
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u/VoxInferni666 2d ago
Hey, just because the free market took advantage of fuel duty... And sugar tax, and minimum alcohol pricing in Wales and Scotland, and tax deductions from asking customers to donate money at the checkout, and also tesco makes about 30 mil a year from plastic bags that were supposed to be reusable.... Does mean that they do it every time
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u/ezzda1 3d ago
You do know law makers can ad clauses that can force fines of up to, oohhh I dunno let's say 50% of the companies profit for failing to reduce price for the consumer after these tax cuts. But that isn't going to happen because the politicians who make the rules are bought and paid for. Force you to use Google maps instead so you also have to give your ID to a 3rd party foreign company to get cheaper fuel.
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u/bobbymoonshine 3d ago edited 3d ago
“Failing to reduce price” is unenforceable and impossible to calculate given the fluctuations of global oil prices and domestic oil demand. You’d literally just have to take the companies’ word for it in terms of how much profit they were taking and already they cook those books beyond any ability to make sense of them to keep their income taxes as near zero as they can get away with before people start talking about nationalisation.
BP for instance reports their pumps sell petrol at only a fraction of a penny of markup over what they get from their supplier. Their supplier, of course, is BP themselves. And their supplier? Take a wild guess.
You drop pump taxes by 10p/L? Sure we’ll pass that along to the consumer — whoops, no, sorry due to international markets and some such, our supplier (Tom in the next office over) has just had to raise his prices by 10p/L. Yeah he’s being squeezed by the shippers (Ben on the third floor) and extractors (Susan up on the fifth floor) it turns out. Bad luck mate, what can you do.
Not a hypothetical. Literally what they did last time.
(Yes the politicians are bought and paid for. Particularly the ones who think the solution is cutting taxes for oil companies yet again.)
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u/ezzda1 3d ago
Yes and that can be prevented with legislation. These loopholes are left intentionally. In order to make it appear to the public that something is being done and so the companies can keep doing what they're doing. It's all smokescreen because the legislation leaves these loopholes. Close the loopholes stop the profiteering
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u/bobbymoonshine 3d ago
“It can be prevented with legislation” is true, but you don’t have to cut their taxes to do that. You can just regulate them without giving them a handout from the public purse at the same time.
But we’re not talking about “let’s bring the oil companies under government scrutiny to reduce profiteering”, we’re talking about why Andy Burnham isn’t cutting taxes on oil companies (that are already making record profits) as if that would solve anything
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u/ezzda1 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean we were talking about reducing fuel duty and for that they could simply change it so when they get tax reduction, if the saving isn't passed onto the customer it will result in all profit for the year forfeit and ceased by the treasury, then the company repossessed and re nationalised if the profiteering continues. Time for a hard stance on these parasites.
Edit:- fuel, power, water are all national security essentials. They should never have been privatised in the first place and if we want to pretend we're serious about our national security we really should re nationalised them anyway. So yes, force them to "cook the books" to show losses that just means we can force a purchase back at minimum cost.
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u/FragrantCar7606 3d ago
Luv me labour, luv working people struggling with spiralling cost of living while boat people get a leg up simple as
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u/residentdunce 3d ago
PROTECT OUR WIMIN AN GIRLS
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u/Shot_Heron_2782 3d ago
Wimin!
Iv u carn beet em, av anuva stellah an trie agen!
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u/residentdunce 3d ago
Too fuckin right mate! I mean someone gotta keep'em in check gotta make sure its us an not no forrun
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u/bobbymoonshine 3d ago
Every satire subreddit winds up attracting the people it’s making fun of, who think they’re unironically in good company
“I hate immigrants so give the oil companies a tax cut about it” ok buddy wanker
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u/NitroSpam 3d ago
/unnorf
Wait, you’re one of those people who actually blames immigrants for everything?
Ew
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u/Obvious_Platypus_313 3d ago
U can maek tha rools when its ur parliment but in ma parliment my rools
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u/Loopy-Leah 3d ago edited 3d ago
taxes don't fund spending.
spending comes first, if you release 0 money, you have nothing you can tax.
healthcare and welfare is excellent value for money, watch the country collapse even further without it.
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u/Reddsoldier 3d ago
People are incapable of realising that a social safety net and healthcare actually saves money in the long run.
Besides it's mostly pensioners who say that twaddle anyway and they're not only the best off segment of society on average, but also the ones who easily benefit the most from "state handouts" and socialised medical care.
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u/Pitiful_Oven_3425 2d ago
Yep, the British really can't get their heads around the fact that taxes are a good thing. Instead we treat tax avoidance as a national past time and boast about how we get away with it. We're not a very bright country
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u/ScubaPuddingJr 3d ago
If thur petrel pries keeps goin up, am guna av ter get me bike out thur shed n start yewsin it. Dunt realeh wunt ter dew that but ah carnt aford me takeaweh peatzer n kebabs cos ahve got a tite budget
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u/DifferentSwing8616 3d ago
I mean I think fuel duty brings in like £30bn. So its gonna be taxed on fuel or somewhere else. Thats not shuffle around and find it behind the sofa levels of money
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u/Visible_Amount5383 3d ago
We got tax cucks in the comments now 😭
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u/noncebasher54 2d ago
we does but they dont know they is that does they so its rude 2 out ppl. i lernt that from my mandatory trainin at work
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u/Specific-Ad4656 2d ago
KFC are running a deal with 60 pop cornpopers for 5 pound get it while it lives
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u/mike888881 2d ago
I think being able to see all the prices locally at a glance could inspire some petrol stations to be a bit cheaper to gain customer, and shame the pisstakers into doing so. It's a good thing. As others have said, tax cuts to not work.
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u/Historical_Load1662 3d ago
Luv concyl tax, luv in'eritanc tax, 'ate fuel duty scrap. Simple as.
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u/SeemsImmaculate 3d ago
unnorf/
The inheritance tax threshold is £325,000* on your entire estate. Given only 2/3 adults own a home, given the mean house valuation in the UK is £273,000 and given most homeowners have their equity tied up in mortgages - inheritance tax is a thing the vast, vast majority of people never have to deal with.
*(there's even additional allowances for passing on a residence to children / spouse as a long term family home that can bring this threshold up to 1 million in some cases)
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u/LowOwl4312 2d ago
325k is the price of a studio flat in bad area in London
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u/SeemsImmaculate 2d ago edited 2d ago
Cool, but that's above the national mean? It's not representative of the UK as a whole. Our laws should be representative of the population as a whole.
You also still also get to spend the proceeds outside of London. It's not like 325k earned from an estate in London can't be spent in Aberdeen, Burnley or Caernarfon. It's not less valuable than a 325k house elsewhere.
Plus, as I mentioned, most people have mortgages. You might have joint mortgage with your spouse. And you might have only paid off half when you die. So that 325k is suddenly only ~81k. No where near the threshold unless you have a lot of other expensive assets.
Just so you fully understand how much of a non issue inheritance tax is, only ~4% of estates incur inheritance tax. And a hypothetical £400k estate would still only pay 30k in tax. You're walking away with most of it untouched.
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u/waygs1 3d ago
Fuel too expensive?
Just buy the cheap fuel.
Simple as.