Let me first state that I'm at a loss to understand why parties dwell so heavily on a decrease in diesel oil prices and not on the prices of all oil products. Of course I have an idea in mind. Maybe the parties that have difficulty establishing relations with people, such as the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Young Party (GP), think that they can easily charm villagers and farmers with such empty promises. But this question is still unanswered: Why will the price of one liter of diesel be reduced to YTL 1 and not that of normal gas? Let me give a hint to the parties on a hunt for votes with their empty promises, which they will never fulfill: Gas is as advantageous in terms of getting more votes as diesel. Given the tax rates applied to gas, if you proclaim that "Gas will be YTL 1.25!" it will be far easier to beguile greater masses, including the urban population, into voting for you.
The competition of "who will reduce diesel prices the most?" initiated by the GP and then followed by the CHP is based on the revocation of the Private Consumption Tax (ÖTV) on fuel products. Although our revenue officers put forward that countries like Germany, England and France apply higher tax rates on gas and diesel, it is obvious that this doesn't reflect the truth.
According to the information finance officers gave, the total tax rate applied to unleaded gas in Turkey was 61 percent as of last month and 52 percent on diesel. It is also claimed that the tax rate on unleaded gas is 65 percent in Germany, 67 percent in England and 63 percent in France. And the tax rate on diesel in Germany is 57 percent, 65 percent in England and 56 percent in France.
Finance officers claim that the statement that Turkey pays the highest amount for taxes in comparison to EU countries is not true and also claim that the total tax rates (Private Consumption Tax + VAT) dropped by around 20 percent in the last two-and-a-half years. According to this calculation, they record that a 74 percent tax rate on oil dropped to 61 percent and a 63 percent gas oil tax decreased to 52 percent. They attribute the decrease in the rates to the fact that the taxes applied to the fuel products are fixed. Since they are fixed, the increase in oil prices causes the rates to fall.
However, these figures don't change the fact that we fill the tanks of our cars by paying the highest amount in the world, even though our oil import prices are not among the highest in the world.
For instance, the Netherlands, which imports oil at $0.559 with all the import, transportation and refinery costs included, sells it to its citizens at $1.678, but Turkey, which imports a liter of oil at $0.535, sells it at $2.184. The same figures in Spain are $0.566 and $1.216; and $0.589 and $1.144 in Japan.
And of course, the difference stems from taxes. All countries sell gas and other oil products at a price higher than cost; however, these differences never amount to such cruelty as it does in Turkey.
The United States applies a $0.103 tax on a liter of gas it obtains at $0.488, and sells it to its people at only $0.591. Japan adds $0.555 to the cost price, the Czech Republic $0.680, Switzerland $0.679, Spain $0.650, Hungary $0.784, France $0.836, Germany $0.913, Italy $0.941 and the Netherlands $1.119. And in Turkey, the tax we pay per liter is as high as $1.350.
And this means that gas, whose cost-price is $0.535, reaches the people at $2.184, which is fourfold the cost-price owing to high taxes and go-betweens.
The state applies the ÖTV on a liter of 98-octane gas, whose refinery-exit price is $0.725, and this way charges an extra YTL 1.3625. As if this weren't enough, it also applies VAT, in which case it increases by YTL 0.3901. When you add the 0.01 percent distribution price and the 36 percent subsidiary share, a liter of gas goes up to YTL 2.96 before it reaches the pump. As a result, our citizens, whose only "crime" is to live in Turkey, pay fourfold what an American pays for a liter of gas, twice as much as what Japanese and Greek citizens pay and a much higher price than the citizens of all other countries.
Now a question may arise: Turkey is not as rich as other countries, so it cannot make oil products available at a more reasonable price. But, are our people as rich as the people of other countries that they are subjected to such a treatment and unfairness? Is riding in automobiles just like other first-class people considered too much for the Turkish nation?
Here you have a wealth of votes. Whichever party succeeds in dropping these merciless amounts of tax to reasonable levels as in other countries will surely garner a far greater number of votes than it normally would, but on the condition that it doesn't leave the project as is and that it devises an alternative to the financial resources fed by these taxes.
