TAX TO THE MILE

Derek Bennett, wincing at the cost of fuel when he fills his car in Walsall.

The weekend looms with its usual array of jobs and routines, one of which is going to my local petrol station in Walsall and wincing as the pounds and pennies whiz round at the pump faster than the fuel indicator as I fill the car with another tank of diesel ready for my motoring week ahead.

Like most these days, I tend not to know exactly how much fuel, other than in value, I have put in my car as it has been a long time since we were able to buy our fuel in Gallons which was a unit of measure I understood, unlike the meaningless litres that our Governments have inflicted upon us in servile duty to their European Union’s masters rulings on enforced metrication.

The cost of fuel and how it is sold has been a bit of an issue this week. The brilliant organisation standing up for the hard pressed taxpayers of the UK, the Taxpayers Alliance (TPA), have been busy exposing the amount of duty drivers pay and have launched a major new campaign on Fuel Duty. They report: “The UK has the highest fuel taxes in the European Union. 60 per cent of what customers pay at the pumps goes straight to the taxman.

“When drivers pay £30 at the till, around £18 of that is paid straight to the Exchequer, with only the remaining £12 covering the cost of the fuel - including just £1 to the retailer. The Government is currently set to add to that burden by increasing the tax early next year.

“Motorists deserve at least a freeze in Fuel Duty for the rest of this Parliament, but we need your help to stop the planned hikes. It only takes a minute to add your voice to calls for lower Fuel Duty.”

They have also asked people to take part in their protest HERE. They want people to let their feelings be known that, despite an idiotic Labour Party aligned think tank openly stating motorists should be charged even more for fuel duty, they are not happy being treated as cash cows and screwed by the Government every time they fill up their cars – which is the modern day version of highway robbery.

Added to this information and campaign from the TPA, the British Weights & Measures Association (BWMA) have sent out their latest edition of ‘Yardstick’ which is their extensive and informative newsletter. In this edition they report on a rather dubious article in the Auto Express that piously announced British drivers have called “for a switch to miles per litre” rather than miles per gallon. The Yardstick printed the dodgy article in full in which it states that a “Poll by the AA and Auto Express reveals many motorists want to switch from mpg to mpl to make it easier to work out fuel costs.”

The article states: “Of the 21,450 drivers surveyed, more than 7000 voted to ditch the traditional mpg figure, which the AA agrees is “outmoded, confusing and irrelevant”, particularly for young drivers.

The article implies that this third of motorists make up the majority and, of course, having the AA to back it up gives it authority (thank God I’m with the RAC!). What is not made clear, as the BWMA point out in the Yardstick, is the fact that the survey really revealed the majority of drivers questioned, 51%, actually thought that fuel economy should be measured in miles per gallon, compared to the 33% who supported miles per litre. What the article did was make the losers look like the winners, it’s a wonder they didn’t go the whole hog by calling for a change to kilometres per litre.

Sadly, they way the cost of fuel duty and taxes are going, the only calculations we will be doing, every time we go through the eye watering and painfully expensive business of filling our cars, is working how much tax to the mile.