Industry News
“Hold off October fuel duty increase to help retailers”, pleads RMI Petrol Retailers Association
19th September 2007
“With both oil prices and interest rates on the rise, the Government must postpone the fuel duty increase scheduled for 1 October, or risk putting undue financial strain on motorists and petrol retailers alike,” according to Ray Holloway, director of the RMI Petrol Retailers Association.
The forthcoming two-pence-per-litre increase was announced in March as part of the Budget, but deferred until the autumn. Duty has already increased twice in the last ten months, with increases that coincided with the Pre-Budget Report in December 2006, and with the Budget in March 2007.
According to Holloway, the scheduled increase should be deferred indefinitely: “A third tax increase in ten months will squeeze the tiny margins that petrol retailers work under further still. We already have fewer filling stations in the UK than in 1912, and it will not take much to push more stations out of business.”
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