Tim May wrote:
> "Here's something to think about - while queuing up for petrol this
> afternoon (yes - I confess to being a panic buyer) I worked out that
> OPEC is charging $30 a barrel and our government is taxing us at
> slightly over $150 a barrel - ouch!"
this is true, and similiar pretty much all over europe.
>
> This is from the U.K., where tax policy is ahead of that of the U.S.
> Whilst we are (almost) ready to mcveigh the tax collectors and wipe
> out millions of burrowcrats, the Brits are quite sheeplike in
> accepting taxes which are several times the price of the underlying
> commodity. Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, and essentially all other
> European nations are similarly sheep-like in their acceptance of such
> taxes.
sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. this is an
economic puzzle, not a political one. food, clothes, tobacco, gas/petrol
and a couple other things have a very unique price structure, in that
the demand is pretty much independent of price - you just need so much
food or tobacco or gas, no matter what it costs, and you don't have any
need for more, no matter how cheap it is. it's therefore been a
long-known fact that you can change prices for this stuff at will
without any change in demand. the only thing stopping you is the
competition.
now a tax is valid for everyone, so the last stop gap is out. therefore,
gas and tobacco are the two highest-taxed items here in germany, and I'm
fairly sure in most of europe.
why don't we complain? oh, we do (a little). :)
in the end, it doesn't matter much. I don't think europeans pay much
more in taxes than US citizen do, it's just distributed differently.
