Classic Car Buyer Magazine No.234 Fed Fears Over Car Tax Back Issue

Over the past few weeks I’ve
been using a 2006-registered
Škoda Superb; a lovely car
that’s spoilt by just one thing – being
May 2006 registered, and with a
2.8-litre V6, its road tax costs £480 a
year. Anyhow, being a range-topping
model, it’s got factory-fit satellite
navigation, but the disc has never
been updated, meaning it’s slightly
out of date.
The most noticeable change is in
the number of petrol filling stations
being shown. I reckon that at least
one in ten of the sites marked as
selling petrol in 2006 are no longer
doing so, and in rural areas it seems
even higher. Conversely, I’ve yet to
see a single petrol forecourt that’s
open but not on the sat nav – and
therefore must’ve been open since
2006…
Given the price of fuel these
days, it’s sometimes tempting to
assume that anyone owning a
petrol ‘outlet’ has a licence to print
money. In truth, fuel retailing is,
unless you’ve a massive throughput,
often little more than a break-even
business, or a loss leader to bring
in customers who will hopefully also
make more profitable purchases.
The typical profit margin is four to
five pence a litre.
To earn even that the retailer
has to provide and maintain the
pumps and forecourt, and pay staff
wages, insurance and electricity
costs. What’s more, the high tax
content of fuel means retailers have
an enormous amount of paperwork
to complete; many reckon that
they should be paid something by
government for the amount of tax
they collect, but can you see that
ever happening?
There’s no 30-day credit for
independent retailers either. Fuel
deliveries have to be paid for in
full – and including all the duties
– on delivery, and a typical tanker
load typically costs ‘trade’ between
£35,000 and £40,000.