The Relative Price of Gas

Yesterday the price of gas in my home town in southern Canada rose to $1.319 per litre -- the highest price ever.

In Germany, they are getting upset with the amount of taxes on gasoline: $1.50 tax with gasoline costing about $2.75/litre.

I'll convert those numbers to US gallons:

While Americans get upset that the price might soon arrive at $4/gal, I'm paying about $5/US gal. Much of the difference is the higher taxes, including the hated GST (VAT) tax imposed on top on other gasoline taxes -- a tax on tax.

In Germany, it is the equivalent of $10.40/gal, of which $5.70 is taxes. There, German consumers understand that the best way to lower the cost of gasoline and diesel is to cut taxes, and so are starting to make a fuss.

And I think that Norway has the most expensive (er, most taxed) gasoline of all countries.

A year ago I was in Mexico, and tried to determine the price of gas there. All gas stations are run by the state monopoly, so there is no need to post prices. Each station had multiple young people servicing vehicles, so it was a bit awkward for me to walk up to a pump and stare that the display. And I had to convert from pesos to dollars. Despite all that, it seemed to me that gas cost about 16 cents a gallon.

Comments

[Robin Capper]

Ours is nz$1:93/l (CAD$1:48) & about 50% is tax.

[Jess Davis]

A friend of mine who is in the trucking business is pretty incensed about the Mexico thing--supposedly Mexican companies can now send their trucks pretty much anywhere they want in the US, so if you're in the trucking biz in the southern part of the country, you now have competition that's buying cheap diesel and (I think) not having to buy EPA compliant engines. If I was a Mexican trucker, I would have a BIIIIG fuel tank.