Greece, debt-ridden and recession-hit Greece, is one of the EU countries with highest taxes on unleaded fuel. This will change and thus upwards, as the government plans too impose a special consumption tax on fuel in order to avoid hikes in the road taxes.
According to latest information issued by the European Commission (Weekly Oil Bulletin) , Greece is fourth on the EU list with the highest taxes in unleaded gasoline.
With Value Added Tax at 23% and the Special Consumption tax at €0.68 per liter Greece outdoes countries like UK, France, Belgium and Austria and certainly countries with austerity memoranda like Portugal, Spain and Italy.
According to the union of petrol stations (POPEK), the level of taxation on fuel is much higher than set by the European Union Directive 2003/16 and the taxes make 67.16% of the price of unleaded gasoline. ” The taxes are 86% above the lower taxation level allowed by the EU Directive 2003/96,” said the POPEK in a statement on Tuesday.
Deputy Finance Minister Tryfon Alexiadis announced that the Special Consumption Tax will increase by €0.10-€0.15 as “equivalent measure” to avoid hikes on “road taxes”.
Alexiadis’ logic was that “vehicles have to pay road taxes according to the use of car and not to cc.” Therefore the hike in fuel taxes.
The logic behind Alexiadis is the usual one: the creditors that want to see money even if there is no money.
POPEK says it even better than me:
“The prospect to raise the Special Consumption Tax by 10-15 cents per liter as announced by Deputy Finance Minister Trifon Alexiadis, is presented together with a bait to reduce road tax in 2017. These are merely classic cunning plans of the ministry mandarins. This is to finance deficits via directly collectable revenues, and then depending on the results of the taxation raids to lower the road taxes after one year.”
Of course, hikes in fuel will lead to hikes in everything else like food items -just to name the most basic ones.
PS come on, make my day! Add another tax!
