UK Government accelerates its move to full blown socialism

From here:

UK Oil And Gas Industry Warns Windfall Tax Will Hurt Energy Security | OilPrice.com

“Last autumn, the UK raised the windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas operators by 10 percentage points to 35% from January 1, 2023. The UK also extended the so-called Energy Profits Levy to the end of March 2028, from December 31, 2025, as originally planned when the levy was 25%.

The total tax rate on the oil and gas sector has thus increased to a massive 75%, the highest of any UK sector, OEUK says.”

Got that? Oil and gas sector taxes at 75%. From my perspective, the tax rate is equivalent to the level of state ownership – in other words, the state has seized ownership of 75% of the oil and gas sector. It also means that oil and gas sector companies can write off 75% of expenses since the government only taxes profits after expenses.

UK consumer power and petrol (gasoline) bills reflect this tax. When consumers spend a pound on these bills, 60 pence of that pound goes to the provider (from which to cover all costs) and 40 pence of that pound is taxation. For a household paying 1,500 pounds a year in electricity and gas, 600 pounds is taxation an extra 50 pounds a month.

Here is a chart of energy demand by fuel type over the last 30 years or so, taken from here:

DUKES 2022 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Lower nuclear, no more coal, constant natural gas (mostly from Norway) and petroleum.

Wind solar and energy up a little – essentially replacing coal and nuclear.

How much do “green” subsidies via tax breaks and for installing solar panels on houses, for example, cost British taxpayers? You will never know. It is a closely guarded secret – even more closely guarded than the harms and deaths caused by C19 injections.

My guess? Probably around 2% of UK GDP = around 40 billion pounds a year = to around the spending of 5% of taxes raised (mostly by the European style value added tax, personal income taxes and “national insurance”.

Prices for oil and gas have fallen to reflect the almost complete redirection of oil and gas exports from Russia to the world via India and China, rather than directly from Russia. (Nice money for these two nations, who buy cheap Russian oil at around 40-50 bucks a barrel and sell it to the rest of the world at spot prices of around 80 bucks – so much for sanctions).

So let’s close the loop.

Having created enormous amounts of energy poverty and hardship via excessive taxes on the oil and gas sector AND imposed “green taxes” on the already impoverished bottom half of UK income earners, the UK government pays some of it back! Not all of it of course. A lot of it is lost in the costs of running the vast socialist bureaucracy.

As an aside, enquiring minds might want to know why “green energy” was not sold at prices prevailing before prices for oil and gas started increasing a few years ago, and, instead, sold electricity to the national grid at the same prices of electricity produced from the oil and gas sectors?

The UK government has been bombarding YV audiences for months with information on welfare payments for lower income households and has paid hundreds of pounds to every UK household, no questions asked, directly into households energy billing accounts. Retuning maybe half of what the UK Government took from household in the first place.

Here’s a taste of the socialist UK government policies to give people their own money back and call it “Government assistance” – as if the government is not owned by the people and IS the problem.

Overall government support for the cost of living: factsheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

(Note the National Living Wage in the UK was increased by 6.6% to around 12 bucks an hour – quite a lot less than minimum wages of around 15 bucks in the US).

The UK Spring Budget is due on 15 March 2023. Stay tuned for more double-speak and obfuscations that conceal the parlous state othe UK as it descends further and further into becoming a full blown socialist state, like most of Europe and all of China.

Here is a backdrop for that upcoming Spring budget.

The fiscal backdrop to Spring Budget 2023 | Institute for Fiscal Studies (ifs.org.uk)

Onwards!

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