Make the Tax Clear & Use it Well (UK Petrol Prices)

Name: Charles Herbert

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Product:	UK Petrol Prices
Date:	01/07/00 (13 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Environment, congestion

Disadvantages: No equivalent expenditure on public transport

We all know that we pay a lot of tax every time we buy petrol. I doubt many of us can remember how much.

How about if tax on fuel was handled in the same way as VAT. In other words, the product was priced separately to the tax. We saw that we were paying (for example) 10p for our petrol and then 800% tax, making it 90p (these figures are just examples, I am not sure of the exact figures).

I don't think the high level of tax would be sustainable much longer if that was done!

I think we would all be ready to accept the escalating tax IF we felt that it was going into improved alternatives -- i.e., public transport.

I have lived in Singapore where the cost of owning a car is much much higher than in the UK (200% tax on the purchase price, then about ten thousand pounds for a Certificate of Entitlement to drive it -- which only lasts ten years, then higher road tax and similar petrol prices), BUT there they have invested heavily in public transport. It is practical to use buses and only budget ten or fifteen minutes extra for your journey whereas it is not true here.

We also need to be realistic about the world's energy supplies. While we might look enviously at US petrol prices. The world could not sustain us all living at the extremely profligate levels of US energy usage, so there does need top be some mechanism for limiting our use of fuel. Plus limiting our use of the roads -- otheriwse congestion would be unbearable (would you like twice as many cars on the M25?)

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