[sudharshan]

On a lighter note, This thread can be summarised as

"United by Cars, Divided by Fuel Price"

[carboy]

Originally Posted by souvikjana83

First of all the Govt has to pay salaries of all the Central and State Employees. The latest pay commission has really put a burden on the Govt to pay salaries and also maintain enough budget for all its programs.

OMG! This govt pays people working for them & even gives them raises. I guess previous governments never had to do these things.

Originally Posted by souvikjana83

On top of it, many industries have closed down due to pandemic/slowdown.

Fuel Taxes weren't raised starting from 2020. They have been raised every year from 2014 on.

[superchamp]

Originally Posted by Mohan Mathew A

Apparently tomorrow, 1st Nov, the price for both will increase by, about, another 50 paise
This has to stop

How could you predict about the gift we were getting on the occasion of Karnataka day. Prices have increased by 48 paise

[PrasannaDhana]

Originally Posted by souvikjana83

And the biggest question is: If the govt changes in 2024, will the new govt reduce taxes on fuel??

The bigger question is Will be able to afford fuel at that time, given the insane daily 30 paise increase in fuel?

[IP_Man]

What hurts me that this insane price of petrol and diesel is very little to do with price of crude oil import.

It seems current government has failed badly on economic front and has no other option but to relay on revenue from taxes on petrol and diesel.

We need good leader on financial front.

[Lalitha Venkat]

Originally Posted by superchamp

To your point, these are responsibilities of a government and not just giving alms to the citizens of a country.
The nation thrives on taxes paid by hardworking people who pay income tax and is then taxed for every purchase starting from a matchbox. We also require return in terms of the taxes wepay. Not everything should be labelled as the poor are getting benefits. We will be poor in no time as well

I feel unless the non salaried people will start paying Income taxes honestly, any Government that comes to India is going to tax fuel as its the lowest hanging fruit and its the most efficient thing to do. I never try and criticize Government spending as it helps in shoring up consumption (Vista or any project). Brent crude is expected to hit $150. Even assuming that the Govt, pegs the taxes to keep Petrol under 90 and Diesel under 80, it not help as base crude is rising. Most of the oil producing states took toll for 12-13 months when crude was hit. I feel Govt should have passed on the price decline to customers keeping a fixed Rs per/ Lit as taxes. It would be able to justify when the px increases. Not sure if prices are going fall unless supplies are going to be increased.
Ps Not that salaried people are honest, they dont have a choice thats all.

Originally Posted by IP_Man

What hurts me that this insane price of petrol and diesel is very little to do with price of crude oil import.

It seems current government has failed badly on economic front and has no other option but to relay on revenue from taxes on petrol and diesel.

We need good leader on financial front like.

Mate- Brent crude was at $18.20 during April 2020 and today is at $86.

[Gotcha]

Instead of just endlessly discussing about the rising fuel prices and taxes we need to start doing something we can. I feel the best way to show our displeasure in a completely democratic way is to start decreasing our consumption of everything non-essential: just buy only veggies, grains and the bare essentials for a month or two. Put off buying new electronics, home appliances or a car (so called luxury & sin items@28% GST ), minimize travelling for leisure and be in a state of self imposed lockdown (atleast for those who can work remotely). The tax revenues will start going down, economy will shrink and "they" will feel the pinch too!

[rsjagtap]

The country should digitize the way fuel is distributed among the citizens. Giving subsidy on diesel to agriculture and essential service transport at least.

The side effect of this on agriculture is that fruit and vegetable prices have also increased under the pretext of rising fuel prices however, it's the middle man that has increased the prices while the farmers are still getting lesser rates for their produce. It is practically impossible for them to sustain at such high prices and strong-arming of the middle men.

[SN88]

Originally Posted by xcentrk

Stopped taking my car and stopped travelling to friends place because of roaring fuel prices. And I'm not comfortable in taking my wife and kid in bike for such long distance. And mind you, I'm earning in 6 figures and if I can feel the pinch so hard, I can't believe the suffering of people below the strata. All this is justified because there were 6 lanes and some metro construction?

We can all talk about whatever we want, but think from poor people's perspective before you support this inhumane price hike.

Absolutely! The figures we make now which would seem like a comfortable life not a long time back seems like it is not sufficient anymore. Not just the fuel we put in our cars have gone up, but everything around it which is compounding the effect.
Some people supporting the hikes are speaking as if only the fuel is pinching. An extra 2-3k in total a month increase wont matter, but an increase every month? No sir that is hard hitting! A year back spending 10-15 k on fuel and now around 22-25k is not normal. On a personal front I am spending approx 1 lac extra on fuel annually comparing to 1-1.5 years back. Food cost increase, business expenses etc are further increased. If you compound the increase in expenses taking all these, the figures go past which is equivalent to the annual salary of many lower income groups! This is not normal or how it should be. My heart goes out to them!!

[turbojet7]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

That's a false argument. I don't use the municipal hospitals, don't buy rice and grains from government, don't buy kerosene, don't use municipal schools, buses etc. Why is my 33% income tax used for such things which I'm not using?

Fuel taxes are extremely high I agree, but from the point of view of fuelling a new recession only. If the government doesn't tax fuel, they will increase gst to say 30% and income tax to 50%. Will you be happy in that case? Atleast now we have a choice to use less fuel.
Having said this, I still maintain the government is bungling bigtime in handling the economy. Unless they appoint experts, they will lead this country to ruin.

That's an even more false argument. There are crores of people that use municipal hospitals, buy rice and grains from government, buy kerosene, use municipal schools etc. Of course they are not financially sound for government to charge them for all these. If they were financially sound, why would they even avail the above. So this unfair practice of charging the financially sound exists. For nearly one year, nearly 80 crore of the 130 crore population depended on the Ration, Food grains, grocery kits and Kerosene distributed as aid through the PM-GKAY. Just in my neighborhood itself, a private bus conductor and an auto-rikshaw driver and their families, whom i personally know, survived on this. These guys had no income for several months at a stretch. Crores of people in this country like that who depends on their daily wage. Just the PM-GKAY scheme costed more than 2 lakh crore for the Government.

Add to that the vaccine burden. States could have shouldered at least half of these. After all half of VAT and GST taxes that citizens pay goes to the state governments. All of them just scooted out of this responsibility and pushed the entire burden on the central Government. Add to this, the nation was in lockdown with minimal commercial activity and fall in income.

Also sustaining an intense showdown at the entire border in the Himalayas all these while shooting up the OPEX costs of MoD. All these while the Infrastructure projects have been going on in an unparalleled pace which this country have not come across before. Even the work carried out in border areas is pretty impressive.

[arakhanna]

On financial literacy please go through the Budget Documents. In FY13-14 BE India spent roughly Rs.50,000 Crs on Fertilizer subsidy. In FY20-21 RE India spent Rs. 134,000 Crs on Fertilzer subsidy. Who do you think paid for this? The tax payer who else. It can come from Income Tax or Excise on Fuel etc. direct or indirect taxes.

In addition, states share in revenues of central pool is 42% now vs 31% in FY14. That is states have been given 10% more revenues over the past 7 years . That is in FY14 states got 31% of all money collected by the center vs in FY21 42%. The actuals are a few points lower due to net and gross calculations but you will get the drift since I assume financial education to understand reports. Hence states are getting a larger share of central revenues ( my personal view is that this should get larger) so with increase in central revenues more money gets channelized to states.

There are many other sectors where similar inflation and expense has occurred but will leave that you since your forte is understand financial reports.

Kindly go through budget documents available to all to understand the flow of money. Instead of just ranting I think its better to have a constructive understanding and see how the cake is being cut and who is getting the higher slice.

Yes my tax rate is 40%++ due to surcharges etc but I am happier with higher tax rate on fuel as it is a cleaner way of taxation. I would prefer only indirect tax and no direct tax. I would also prefer no subsidy and only basic income for all below poverty line. I guess I should stop here before going off topic.

[kadanaJ]

From the looks of it, fuel prices are only going to go higher and higher. My car gives me an average of 10kmpl. My running cost for a 20km commute has just become Rs. 240.

I feel I'm in this difficult spot where the fuel prices are getting too high, but my running isn't enough to justify a EV like the Tata Nexon.

Maybe when fuel inevitably reaches ₹200 per litre, and a small city EV is available for under 10 lakhs.

[arpanguha]

Originally Posted by kadanaJ

From the looks of it, fuel prices are only going to go higher and higher. My car gives me an average of 10kmpl. My running cost for a 20km commute has just become Rs. 240.

I feel I'm in this difficult spot where the fuel prices are getting too high, but my running isn't enough to justify a EV like the Tata Nexon.

Maybe when fuel inevitably reaches ₹200 per litre, and a small city EV is available for under 10 lakhs.

Don't worry, by the time that happens FAME would have famished, we will have EVs taxed at the same rate as premium cars, and charging cost per unit will have cess, GST, etc added to it. Since all EVs in the Indian market are connected vehicles, these most probably would be directly debited from a vehicle users account, irrespective of where they charge.

Truly, the Good times have come.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by Nalin1

How to extract the maximum out of every drop now? Let's start a new thread. That is BHPIANS forte .

Great point. I have already started driving at 80 on the highways. On my last BLR-MAS-BLR trip, I was cruising at 80 kmph and my Creta 1.4D returned a mileage of 24+. Earlier, I used to cruise at 100 and the mileage used to be around 20.
It took me an additional 30 min for the journey but was happy at the end.



A point to those advocating consumption based tax as a great leveler, this has been debunked universally. These taxes impact people in the lower strata much more than the rich. It works only in small countries where there is negligible inequality in incomes. And guess what, places that have consumption based tax, usually have very low personal income tax.

[AnandB]

Originally Posted by m8002?

Great point. I have already started driving at 80 on the highways. On my last BLR-MAS-BLR trip, I was cruising at 80 kmph and my Creta 1.4D returned a mileage of 24+. Earlier, I used to cruise at 100 and the mileage used to be around 20.
It took me an additional 30 min for the journey but was happy at the end.

I too got great mileage when cruising below 80kmph. Maybe these prices being increased so we drive slower and hence less accidents. That's one way to make roads safer.