WOW who's the villian?

[magnifier661]

It looks like our government is taking a big chunk of the gasoline profits. I do know that supposedly the tax is to help build and maintain the roads; but I also remember the lottery was to go towards schools (only 10% actually makes it there). Or how Social Security is supposed to go towards the retired 60+ tax payers. They've tapped into that budget as well.

I wonder just how much of this tax goes to the transit, maintenance and construction of the roads?

[Blaze01]

Yeah and state and county taxes on that as well.....The whole thing is a fucking farce. I have no particular love for the oil companies, but all the "added" taxes by Federal\Stae\County governments adds up to a MUCH larger portion of gas prices.....

But, sure it is ALL the greedy oil companies' fault....

[westnob]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ForAmerica#ForAmerica

Before founding the MRC in 1987, Bozell ran the National Conservative Foundation project at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which he moderated debates between Sam Donaldson and Bob Novak over media bias.[6]

In 1998, Bozell founded the Conservative Communications Center.[7][8] The MRC also established CNSNews.com, the site of the Conservative News Service later becoming known as Cybercast News Service, as well as numerous other MRC-affiliated web sites.[4] On its website, MRC publishes Bozell's syndicated columns, the CyberAlert daily newsletter documenting perceived media bias, and research reports on the news media.

On his MSNBC news program Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Olbermann named Bozell the "Worst Person in the World" several times in 2006 and 2007.[9][10][11][12] In response, Bozell posted a press release on the MRC site claiming that Countdown "Preaches Hate Speech".[13] In October 2006, Bozell founded the Culture and Media Institute, an MRC branch whose mission is to reduce what he claims to be a negative liberal influence on American morality, culture, and religious liberty.[4]

[magnifier661]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ForAmerica#ForAmerica

I know the banner was regarding "ForAmerica", but the reality is still there. I could use a non-partisan statistic, just thought that graphic pretty much sums it up. The fact is taxes on cigarettes and gas are seriously crazy. For cigarettes; they are actually making around $3 per pack. The actual tobacco companies are making 30¢ per pack. Yes cigs are bad for you and gas is bad for the environment, but HOLY SHIT MAN!

[PapaG]

Is Westnob going to refute the supposed facts, or just give an ad hominen shot at the group who purports it to be fact?

Are you saying that a significant chunk of each gallon of gas doesn't go to the government? That's how adults debate things; they bring other facts to contradict what they believe to be a false or misleading claim.

[crowTrobot]

It looks like our government is taking a big chunk of the gasoline profits. I do know that supposedly the tax is to help build and maintain the roads; but I also remember the lottery was to go towards schools (only 10% actually makes it there). Or how Social Security is supposed to go towards the retired 60+ tax payers. They've tapped into that budget as well.

I wonder just how much of this tax goes to the transit, maintenance and construction of the roads?

whatever you think of the taxes the 7 cents profit for oil companies is a bogus number. obviously it's WAY more than that when prices spike. $10 billion/profit a quarter for Exxon doesn't come from 7 cents/gallon. give me a break.

[speeds]

Gas is $5.30/US gallon here right now, this shit is getting out of hand.

That statistic sounds bogus, though. I think the oil companies make considerably less.

[PapaG]

An interesting read from last year.

http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/...it-per-gallon/

Exxon makes ~8% profit on gasoline, no matter what the price. That's lower than most major industries in terms of margin, but we've been over that before on this board, and it gets tiresome bringing up the same things every year.

[3RA1N1AC]

whos the villain? obama is, duh

[BLAZINGGIANTS]

whos the villain? obama is, duh

+1.

[westnob]

Is Westnob going to refute the supposed facts, or just give an ad hominen shot at the group who purports it to be fact?

Are you saying that a significant chunk of each gallon of gas doesn't go to the government? That's how adults debate things; they bring other facts to contradict what they believe to be a false or misleading claim.

That's rather presumptious. I was just sharing some information about the source. I didn't realize it was an attack, are you implying there is something wrong with conservatives?

[westnob]

I know the banner was regarding "ForAmerica", but the reality is still there. I could use a non-partisan statistic, just thought that graphic pretty much sums it up. The fact is taxes on cigarettes and gas are seriously crazy. For cigarettes; they are actually making around $3 per pack. The actual tobacco companies are making 30¢ per pack. Yes cigs are bad for you and gas is bad for the environment, but HOLY SHIT MAN!

The price of cigarettes and the restrictions on where one can smoke, clearly influence how much people smoke. That is the intention of those regulations, and it works.

[westnob]

An interesting read from last year.

http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/...it-per-gallon/

Exxon makes ~8% profit on gasoline, no matter what the price. That's lower than most major industries in terms of margin, but we've been over that before on this board, and it gets tiresome bringing up the same things every year.

4*.08 = .32 !=.07 Good post PapaG for proving the source to be inaccurate.

[BLAZINGGIANTS]

The US Government's number is the taxation. The Oil Companies' number is "profit". There is gross profit, net profit, net profit after taxes (and anything that may be unusual) ...... I'd be curious to know what what "profit" they're talking about. Profit after lining the pockets of their big execs?

Stats don't lie.... they're just easy to manipulate to paint whatever picture you want to paint.

[BLAZER PROPHET]

whatever you think of the taxes the 7 cents profit for oil companies is a bogus number. obviously it's WAY more than that when prices spike. $10 billion/profit a quarter for Exxon doesn't come from 7 cents/gallon. give me a break.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/stat...es/10s1066.pdf

Well, let's see. In 2007 we consumed in this country alone 176 billion gallons of fuel (excluding airplanes). If an oil company makes $.07 per gallon, that comes to $12,320,000,000.00 ($12.3 billion). Then if airplanes are added...

[bluefrog]

The US Government's number is the taxation. The Oil Companies' number is "profit". There is gross profit, net profit, net profit after taxes (and anything that may be unusual) ...... I'd be curious to know what what "profit" they're talking about. Profit after lining the pockets of their big execs?

Stats don't lie.... they're just easy to manipulate to paint whatever picture you want to paint.

I'd also like to know if that 46¢ a gallon is before or after the $40 billion subsidies the oil industry receives

[Denny Crane]

whatever you think of the taxes the 7 cents profit for oil companies is a bogus number. obviously it's WAY more than that when prices spike. $10 billion/profit a quarter for Exxon doesn't come from 7 cents/gallon. give me a break.

If you sell 100 things at $.01 profit, you make $1 in profit. If next year, you sell 200 things at $.01 profit, your profit goes up to $2. And yeah, the demand for oil is going way up due to countries like India and China with billions of population and Japan burning oil because their nuclear reactors are shut down.

[magnifier661]

Well how about we not worry about what the exxons of the world make and just break down the simple tax. And also keep in mind that the price you pay at the pump isn't the price that the fuel companies actually make. Each station is independently owned. They would need significant "mark-up" to keep the doors open; so I would say the "lion's share" of the profits will go to the retail outlet.

http://www.api.org/Oil-and-Natural-G...uel-Taxes.aspx

This is another link that explains the actual cost of gasoline.

This link has a nice break down per state in terms of taxes, so review freely.

This PDF file says the average U.S. State and Government tax is roughly 48.8 cents per gallon.

Price of crude is 74% of the total price. Taxes are 11%. Refining is 10% and distribution and marketing is 5%.

In the link, it has a simple description of the actual "profit"

In a simple illustration, let’s assume an oil company is paying $100 for a barrel (42 gallons) of basic crude oil. Their cost for a gallon will be about $2.38. At a gasoline-pump price of $4.00 per gallon, 44 cents has to pay for taxes and 20 cents for distribution and marketing expenses. This leaves $3.36 for the oil companies. Out of that total they have to pay for the cost of the gallon of crude oil itself which was $2.38 and also the 40 cents to refine it into gasoline. This leaves $0.58 profit per gallon of gasoline. As noted, however, depending on which report one looks at, this profit-margin can range anywhere between an estimated 30 to 60 cents per gallon.

So in other words, the government (Average tax $0.48 per gallon) is making more per gallon than the big companies (Average $0.30 - $0.60) selling it.

And keep in mind that this simple illustration doesn't include marketing and profit sharing to the local business owners.

[magnifier661]

and another quote on that same link:

Oil Companies Caught In A Double Bind?

The oil companies, however, express much grief that they are actually losing their Cost To Refine Oilprofit-margin because as crude oil prices continue to rise over $100 per barrel, they are finding it increasingly difficult to pass any substantial portion of their added costs onto the consumer. Like everyone else, they claim, the oil industry is going through a traumatic period. On one hand they must strive to satisfy their shareholders. But, on the other hand, to keep the investors happy a business must grow to increase profits which, they claim is getting more difficult to do. They are caught in a double bind, experts say. While the price of oil is increasing, the consumption of gasoline in the U.S. is falling. In this regard, although crude oil prices more than doubled in the past year, the oil experts say, wholesale prices for gasoline have risen only 39 percent.

Currently, crude oil is @ $102 - 122.62 per barrel (Since the $0.30 - $0.60 per gallon is based on $100 barrels). That is dipping into the big oil company's profits.

[PapaG]

Well how about we not worry about what the exxons of the world make and just break down the simple tax. And also keep in mind that the price you pay at the pump isn't the price that the fuel companies actually make. Each station is independently owned. They would need significant "mark-up" to keep the doors open; so I would say the "lion's share" of the profits will go to the retail outlet.

http://www.api.org/Oil-and-Natural-G...uel-Taxes.aspx

This is another link that explains the actual cost of gasoline.

This link has a nice break down per state in terms of taxes, so review freely.

This PDF file says the average U.S. State and Government tax is roughly 48.8 cents per gallon.

Price of crude is 74% of the total price. Taxes are 11%. Refining is 10% and distribution and marketing is 5%.

In the link, it has a simple description of the actual "profit"



So in other words, the government (Average tax $0.48 per gallon) is making more per gallon than the big companies (Average $0.30 - $0.60) selling it.

And keep in mind that this simple illustration doesn't include marketing and profit sharing to the local business owners.

Don't forget that the oil and gas companies have to put money back into their business. Exploration, maintenance, new permits, distribution, R &D, etc. etc. On the other hand, for the government, the only cost is to pay the people who collect the taxes from the oil and gas companies.

Blaming "Big Oil" makes for great campaign slogans and appeals to the lowest common denominator, but even a bit of research shows that the 'billions' in profits by oil and gas are based primarily on volume, and not some favorably skewed profit structure and the paying of "big execs".

[magnifier661]

Don't want to keep the rant on, but you would never guess the companies investing big money into "hydrogen fuel technology"? Yep you guessed it! Those evil Big Oil Companies! DAMN THEM TO HELL!

[PapaG]

I'll add that if the oil and gas companies start losing money due to market conditions and see their profits shrink or even take a loss, the government still makes the same amount of money per gallon. It's the perfect target for class warfare.

[RR7]

Just seems like an odd statistic to show their PROFIT, and what govt. tax is. If we remove from the equation the money that oil companies uses on expenses, should we also eliminate from the graphic what govt. uses the money on? It seems to try to present it as if the govt. profits are more, when govt. has expenditures tied to what they bring in same way the oil company does.

[magnifier661]

Don't forget that the oil and gas companies have to put money back into their business. Exploration, maintenance, new permits, distribution, R &D, etc. etc. On the other hand, for the government, the only cost is to pay the people who collect the taxes from the oil and gas companies.

Blaming "Big Oil" makes for great campaign slogans and appeals to the lowest common denominator, but even a bit of research shows that the 'billions' in profits by oil and gas are based primarily on volume, and not some favorably skewed profit structure and the paying of "big execs".

It seriously baffles me that people want to label these guys as villians. First of all, these companies are "publicly traded"; which means they can't just toss money their way. They are paid based on the market's price for those exects. Just like Players in the NBA are determined by similar caliber players.

Let's down size this to a smaller scale. Let's say Larry is a 12 year old kid that has a paper route. He realizes that if he hires 100 kids to run other routes for him; he can take 10% of their earnings (you know setting it up, designing the best possible way to deliver the papers, etc). So now he is managing the 100 kids and stopped delivering paper. Instead he manages the route and customers within that route.

All the sudden the local government takes wind of this business venture and decides to take 11% of the total profits. Well he was only making 10% and the cost of papers are the same. So he must go back to his employees and tell them that they must give up an additional 10% to cover the taxes. The employees tell him to fuck off and say "It's your problem, not mine" and poor old Larry goes out of business.

[PapaG]

Just seems like an odd statistic to show their PROFIT, and what govt. tax is. If we remove from the equation the money that oil companies uses on expenses, should we also eliminate from the graphic what govt. uses the money on? It seems to try to present it as if the govt. profits are more, when govt. has expenditures tied to what they bring in same way the oil company does.

Other than collecting the taxes, what investment does government put into this industry? Some tax credits? What government does with that money after it is collected is irrelevant to this discussion. They have no "skin in the game", to borrow a phrase from a current politician.