Gotcha!Originally Posted by dsirkle
In regards to our National Health Service, yes, it's funded by taxes, but not by the fuel duty that we currently pay. It comes from our National Insurance which we pay out of our wages each payday. We also have income tax, which I'm sure you guys do aswell?
My typical wage slip has my monthly salary, with deductions for PAYE tax (Pay As You Earn) and National insurance. An old wage slip I have with me now, shows monthly earnings of £1541.67. PAYE tax - £217.60, and National Insurance is - £119.57, leaving me with £1204.50 going into my bank account. So I basically work a week out of every month to pay for whatever the government decides to do with our money. We also have to pay council tax which is about £120 per month (this depends on your house and where it is, so rises and falls according to the size of your house, and it's location).
Currently, our government is taking approximately 90-95p in fuel duty for the £1.20 we're paying at the pumps, which is what's angering many motorists, when other European countries are paying a hell of a lot less. A report came out yesterday saying that our government gained £1.7billion in revenue from the fuel duty they put on, only a week after Gordon Brown said he can do nothing about our fuel prices.
Either way, we all seem to be in the same boat with the petrol prices at the minute. I can understand your prices being lower however, as your octane is a lot less than ours, as technically, we have a slightly better quality of fuel. Do you guys have super unleaded over there? If so, what's it's octane?
This really fascinates me at the minute, seeing how your economy is working with first hand views from the people themselves. So sorry if I'm waffling on a bit!
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