from
http://www.bp.co.nz/about/pricing/index.html#4
Is petrol tax a fixed percentage of the total cost of petrol? If it is, the government is making a steal.
At the current price for premium of $1.759/litre, the government is making 76.7 cents for every litre you put in.
Back in Feb, 2003, petrol was $1.179 for premium Sited here:http://www.bp.co.nz/bin/press/item.pl?id=1044235129&showarchive=yes. The government would then have been making 51.4 cents from every litre of petrol you put in.
But if petrol was a fixed tax, rather than rising and falling with fuel prices, and we were to pay 51.4 cents (just for example) tax on our petrol today, we would be paying $1.506/litre(approx). I'm sure our budget surplusses for the last few years could cope.
Now, the interesting thing with this is that we are paying more tax for less milage. As prices rise, and therefore tax, we get less petrol for our buck, threfore can do less milage in our cars. But the government has collected more tax, even though we can't go as far. Therefore NZs roads should have less damage to them because people can't go as far, therefore the tax shouldn't be needed. But does it drop?
