Is it right and fair that the goverment should charge and collect vat on fuel when they already collected....?

Question

50p per litre duty on the same litre of petrol !! isn't this a blatent case of double charging ?

Answer 1

It is double charging you (taxing you on tax). Yes.

As to whether it is fair or not, my view is that tax is neither fair nor unfair - it is just what the government charges you do do what it wants to do.

The UK Government seems to have a favourite saying at the moment, which is that everyone should pay their 'fair share' of tax.

I disagree.

Apart from the fact that 'fair' is a highly subjective notion that should have little place in law, I feel that it is iniquitous that someone who has a vested interest in taking the money from us should decide what is fair! This is legalised mugging, with the mugger saying that you should be grateful because they are giving you their personal and undivided attention.

When you look at the amount of money the UK Government extorts from the public without them knowing, I think you will agree that the level of UK taxation is already beyond a joke, and that if the Government wants to talk about 'fair' it should be reducing the tax burden, not increasing it.

As this is unlikely, it is only right and proper that you should act to preserve your hard earned income.

The average UK citizen works from New Year's Day to May 24th solely to pay their taxes - the so-called 'Tax Freedom Day'. Effectively, for a third of a year everyone in this country is a civil servant.

And that's not just in one year, that's every year. This happens all the way through your life. And after tax has been deducted, the little that remains is taxed again! If you spend it you're taxed. If you save it you're taxed. Once you have finished work and start using your savings to take a pension - you are taxed again. When you die - you are taxed again!

However I have looked at this and think that the publicly quoted 'Tax Freedom Day' is actually much later than that.

Of £100 earned, 11% is paid in National Insurance contributions (nothing but a euphemism for an additional tax on income) and 22% is paid in Income Tax (40% for higher rate taxpayers).

Of the remaining £67 of take-home pay let's say that over a week you spend it like this:

£15 for a meal out

£8 on cinema tickets

£16 in petrol

£3 put by for electricity

£7 on some cigarettes

£9 on a few drinks down the pub

£4 paid out in insurance premiums

£3 put aside for Council Tax

£2 put by for Road Tax

Sound reasonable?

Obviously 100% of the last two items are wholly tax.

Your electricity bill is subject to 5% 'Value Added Tax'. Your insurance policy is also subject to a 5% 'Insurance Premium Tax'. When you spend anything at the cinema and eating out, 17.5% is automatically added to the bill to be given to the government in VAT. While you're enjoying yourself, so is the Treasury.

35% of a well-deserved drink goes direct to our masters, and a recent AA campaign followed by the picketing of oil refineries serves to remind us that a staggering 85% of the money spent on petrol is snatched by the taxman. Eighty five per cent! But even that is not the worst. The state loves a smoker, of course, and from the money spent on cigarettes an astonishing 88.9% enters its coffers.

Altogether, a full £29.91 of that week's expenses goes straight to the taxman.

Of the £100 earned, £62.91 will have been paid to the government in tax.

At the end of the day, all you will have to show for it is £37.09 in goods and services. A higher-rate taxpayer will retain a miserly £29.09! And that ignores the additional £12.80 your employer will have had to pay to the government.

Oh, and I haven't even taken into consideration the host of taxes on business, airport taxes, capital gains tax ... and then there's stamp duty, where you hand over thousands just because you decide to move house!

'Fair' is not a word we would apply to this - it is purely and simply Highway Robbery.

All this means that the real 'Tax Freedom Day' - the day a basic rate taxpayer actually starts earning for himself rather than the Government - is 18 AUGUST

The high level of fuel tax is why I converted my car to run on LPG.

Answer 2

yes and as an article I read the other day EG : if you put £ 15-00 of fuel in aprox  Ã‚£ 10-00 is tax IE you only have £ 5-00 worth of fuel !!! so yes we are being blatently ripped off !!!!!!!!