The Labour Government

metalblue said:
I always knew you were a closet Tory ya leftie tosser.
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We were promised much better. It’s not. It’s just as bad or possibly worse. Just call it a day and let someone else have a go.
 
metalblue said:
Retailer margin will include covering wages, impacted by increases to minimum wage and NI so to say government policy has nothing to do with it isn’t true.

In the overall scheme of things retailer margin pales in to insignificance compared to tax element - which I don’t particularly find a fair tax as it’s not really progressive and impacts us all irrespective of ability to pay.
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I was talking about straight profit margins. Fuel retailers including the big supermarkets have doubled their margins since 2019. That's after all of their costs are taken into account.

I agree with you regarding progressive taxation. But it is very difficult to make it truly progressive where the spending is "discretionary", as it is on fuel. The lack of action on making taxation more progressive is disappointing in my eyes. The problem is the system is so complicated, any change has an impact on other aspects of the system.
 
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hampshireblue said:
I was talking about straight profit margins. Fuel retailers including the big supermarkets have doubled their margins since 2019. That's after all of their costs are taken into account.

I agree with you regarding progressive taxation. But it is very difficult to make it truly progressive where the spending is "discretionary", as it is on fuel. The lack of action on making taxation more progressive is disappointing in my eyes. The problem is the system is so complicated, any change has an impact on other aspects of the system.
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The most unfair part of it is the simple amount. Fuel duty right now is 52.95p, so around 1/3 of the price at the pump. You then have VAT so that's another 20%. So if you fill up £50 then 52% of that amount is just tax, it's mental.

On that £50 the retailer will make about £3 so even if they made no profit at all then it would make no difference.

It's just stupid on this issue to blame profiteering when the biggest profiteer is the government! The government has a massive lever to help and they have chosen not to help. It is also inexcusable because they knew this war was coming. The US build up to action in Iran started a month before the actual war started. They've had 3-4 months and done nothing.

Their predictive ability and efforts are purely based upon what happens today and that's it, forget months or years in the future, it's shambolic. Number 10 has likely spent 100x more energy over the last week deflecting Mandelson than it has working out a workable cost of living policy.
 
We've got Guardiola said:
The most unfair part of it is the simple amount. Fuel duty right now is 52.95p, so around 1/3 of the price at the pump. You then have VAT so that's another 20%. So if you fill up £50 then 52% of that amount is just tax, it's mental.

On that £50 the retailer will make about £3 so even if they made no profit at all then it would make no difference.

It's just stupid on this issue to blame profiteering when the biggest profiteer is the government! The government has a massive lever to help and they have chosen not to help. It is also inexcusable because they knew this war was coming. The US build up to action in Iran started a month before the actual war started. They've had 3-4 months and done nothing.

Their predictive ability and efforts are purely based upon what happens today and that's it, forget months or years in the future, it's shambolic. Number 10 has likely spent 100x more energy over the last week deflecting Mandelson than it has working out a workable cost of living policy.
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I don't disagree with you totally. The issue is how much does the government decide is a really worthwhile cut in taxes. At present the overall government take of fuel duty is at its' lowest since 2023, mainly due to a reduction in usage. That reduction in usage itself is probably the biggest saving people can make.

Fuel prices have been higher in the past and if I remember rightly there was no government support on those occasions. Maybe any meaningful cuts in duty should be aimed at hauliers to help keep their costs, and hence our prices down.
 
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161 pubs have closed since the tax increases and it’s a 26% increase on the same timescale prior to the tax rise.

I appreciate we have a very large deficit and public spending needs to be funded but surely this is counter productive and will eventually lead to a net loss of tax gained from hospitality?
 
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