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Indian Gov taxes Petrol at 200% +
- josh_today 5y agoMore reasons to tax you into poverty and dependence on the government
- dang 5y agoWe've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of which ideology you're battling for, because it destroys what the site is supposed to be for. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- Arbalest 5y agoWhen you have the population density and city pollution levels they have in big Indian cities, I don't blame them for trying to discourage the use of petrol. Even if you don't believe in climate change, there's real haze over many of their cities which has well documented effects on respiratory health.
- unmole 5y agoThe price elasticity of fuels is famously low. So, increasing the price of fuel by 10% will not lead to a 10% reduction in consumption. The government knew this and doesn't claim that these are meant to reduce fuel consumption. Besides, it's not like much of India has decent public transport. The high taxes are not meant to reduce consumption but shore up revenue. The Indian government slashed corporate tax rates last year. And revenues from GST were lower than expected because of the shutdowns imposed to contain the pandemic. Here are two very well written articles by Vivek Kaul which explain the high prices in great detail: https://vivekkaul.com/2021/06/17/petrol-and-diesel-prices-are-high-due-to-lower-corporate-taxes-not-because-of-oil-bonds/ https://vivekkaul.com/2021/06/17/petrol-and-diesel-prices-ar... https://vivekkaul.com/2021/07/14/whats-the-real-story-behind-high-petrol-and-diesel-prices/ https://vivekkaul.com/2021/07/14/whats-the-real-story-behind...
- thewhitetulip 5y agoPublic transport costs are increasing as well. I used to pay 10rs for a shared auto per 5km, now it's gone to 15/20. Public transport aka buses are still cheap but number of busses and their frequency is low
- unmole 5y agoIncrease in fuel prices increases the cost of all transport. This causes inflation all across the board
- thewhitetulip 5y agoOff topic, but are you the guy whose Reddit username is also unmole?
- manquer 5y agoIt has nothing to do with climate change though. Fuel is very price inelastic , i.e. higger price doesn't reduce consumption that much. higher fuel prices adversely affect the poor a lot more . This tax is largely because despite all the buzz on growth and economic policy ( demonitization etc) the current government is completely incompetent (last wasn't that much better either) to actually increase tax collection. Very few indians pay tax - only salaried employees really , that's a small percentage of the population. Also taxing fuel that high is going to also force people to use less clean fuel like wood etc that will negatively impact pollution
- space_rock 5y agoYes higher prices reduce consumption. There is no perfectly inelastic market. There are cheap Chinese electric vehicles available
- vadfa 5y agoAre they cheap and sturdy enough as to allow a very poor person to sell their petrol car and buy one of those?
- dhruval 5y agoA “very poor person” in an Indian context doesn’t own a car. A lot of people in India use scooters and motorcycles. The transition to electric scooters is happening. There are a few local companies in the space. They tend to be a lot easier to manufacture than electric cars.
- chakkepolja 5y agoThe number of electric scooters is super negligible.
- testuser546 5y agoOla's electric scooter got a lot of bookings, hope it's good enough to replace a petrol scooter Ather, Hero and TVS already have electric scooters, but they are not much known in the market rn.
- kybernetyk 5y agoYeah, poor people shouldn’t have transportation. t.hackernews
- shmde 5y agoYes, its funny people think its about tackling climate change and encouraging people to use petrol/diesel alternatives. When in reality there is none present and people still have to commute everyday to work in petrol/diesel vehicles.
- chakkepolja 5y agoBefore asking middle class people to use public transport instead of motorcycle, you have to actually provide good public transport.
- RalfWausE 5y agoNow... my granddad was a miner after the second world war, and he commuted roughly 20 km (one way) every day by bicycle and even rode from the Ruhr region in Germany to Austria on it(no fancy mountainbike or roadbike, just an old "Vaterland")...
- thewhitetulip 5y agoI really really wanted to buy a 2 wheeler EV 3yrs ago. But the only available option was Okinawa bike that went barely 50km in one charge. I now have a 3yr old petrol 2 wheeler that I need to get rid of until I have some sensible options in EVs. Ola, simple energy won't make a delivery in a fewmonths and they're over booked as hell. And current vehicles have too short range (less than 80km actual) Currently the only affordable 4wheeler ev in India is Nexon EV at 150k INR. MG has an ev at 250k INR and Hundai too at 250K INR Prices need to come down. Charging stations need to be set up + batteries should last for a long time
- rg111 5y agoTo be able to be discouraged from doing something, one needs to be able to do that in the first place. This is like the French queen saying, "if they cannot afford bread, why don't they eat cake?"
- anontrot 5y agoUh that's a creative way of looking at it. When you increase fuel prices: 1. Daily expense increases for commuters 2. An already weak public transport becomes expensive for commuters 3. Cost of almost everything increases (our logistics are road heavy) 4. Income of individuals are not increasing, so above 3 are going to hurt a lot more
- sMarsIntruder 5y agoWell in Italy we’re not so distant with a +180% ca.
- GhettoComputers 5y agoThe corruption in both countries seems to have universal effects.
- kybernetyk 5y agoGermany is nearing 300%
- arein3 5y agothat's a lie
- kybernetyk 5y agoIs it? Net price if 1l petrol is around 40 euro cent. At the gas station you can get one Liter for 160 cents. As I’m writing the cheapest price is 168 cents.
- arein3 5y agoit is 50+ euro cent per liter (platts cotation) and it's arround 15 euro cent per liter for transportation + storage and services Fuel taxes in Germany are €0.6545 per litre for conventional unleaded petrol, plus Value Added Tax (19%) on the fuel itself and the Fuel Tax. so the 19% VAT is 30cents + 65 cents petrol tax is 95 cents in total for tax the remaining 65 cents are for fuel price and profit so it's more like 150%-200% but not 300%
- glenneroo 5y ago300% compared to when? And where are you getting your info from? Googling for "gasoline prices Europe" and it's apparently nowhere even close to that. I can't vouch for the accuracy of either of these sites but they have nice historical price charts: https://www.statista.com/statistics/603701/diesel-fuel-prices-germany/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/603701/diesel-fuel-price... https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gasoline-prices https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gasoline-prices Italy also doesn't seem to be even close to 180%: https://tradingeconomics.com/italy/gasoline-prices https://tradingeconomics.com/italy/gasoline-prices
- GhettoComputers 5y agoThey're running out of money with many programs that don't work, so they're taxing the commoners so corrupt politicians can steal the funds.
- PostThisTooFast 5y agoCalifornia is right behind them.
- kybernetyk 5y agoThat’s what pretty much every government does. Some are just better at hiding or astroturfing.
- OneTimePetes 5y agoThis is such a defeatist attitude. Make it transparent. Redesign the public machinery so that it rewards reporting on corruption and nepotism. Make it a career move to oust bad apples. He who reports his bosses corruption, gets his job. Same for monopolistic practices. Report them, become CEO of the busted off Company part. We can engineer processes for anything, we can design them to produce lean, mean state-machines grinding the bad actors inside to dust.
- nomorewords 5y agoIn a lot of parts of the world, trying to fight it can put you in some bad people's crosshairs. At the very least, nothing gets done because "at least X was improved"
- debdut 5y agoeventually no public machinery works. It's not about design but incentives
- OneTimePetes 5y agoTRIZ states, if your machinery starts to cease functioning, you design it to self destruct and be replaced with functioning machinery. A ablative material. This whole "cant-do-nothing" John-Galt mental laziness is a scourge on the political climate and debate. I rather hang around with a bunch of stoners who get stuff done and be constructive, then this bards singing praise of corporate mini-kingdoms deriding the lands outside falling apart because the king does not pay taxes to the emperor.
- smabie 5y agoGas taxes are a very attractive revenue source due to the inelasticity of demand: the global maxima of the Laffer curve is far to the right.
- potamic 5y agoI think inflation has increased across the board since the pandemic. Countries all over have pumped in unprecedented amount of money into their economies so this was bound to happen. Governments seem to be downplaying the numbers to some extent but people are starting to feel the real impact. I wonder if such cash injections into the economy are useful even and if they create a net good in the long run?
- thewhitetulip 5y agoNot to mention supply chain issues!
- unmole 5y agoThis isn't inflation due to supply demand mismatch though. This is government imposing absurdly high taxes
- debdut 5y agoI see people here saying poor saying poor people don't have cars or it's for climate change. Increase in oil prices have affected public transportation and mainly cost of goods by 30-40% because of transportation cost and poor people are getting hurt :(
- thewhitetulip 5y agoPrices for regular things are rising. For eg price of matchbox was raised from 1 I R to 2 INR after decades. Diesel is used to transport goods across the country so heavy taxes on Petrol will soon raise prices across the board for ALL items.
- 0des 5y agoIf I recall correctly, isn't most of India diesel-based?
- thewhitetulip 5y agoPetrol is most. Diesel is 2nd I guess all trucks use diesel
- ab_testing 5y agoI think the biggest issue is that the income tax base in India is very small. India has 4x the population of US but individual taxpayers are 1/15 of the US. Most of the people do not pay taxes and the government has to make up the lost revenue somehow - petrol and diesel are the only taxes that can target large swaths of the population. A majority of the Indian population is still in agriculture and agricultural income is not taxed. Also small stores that deal in cash also avoid taxes. Another thing about India is that every election is won by politicians guaranteeing free stuff for the masses - but that money for the free stuff has to come from somewhere - and that is why they need to tax fuel.
- thewhitetulip 5y agoThe govt has massively reduced corporate tax and they have to get the shortfall amount from somewhere. India has double taxpayers now compared to when Congress rules. It's not like suddenly people stopped paying income tax during current govt
- known 5y ago[dead]