Re using it instead of diesel. I'm sure I read somewhere that our government was imposing (or intending to impose) the same tax levy as on diesel to avoid loss of revenue.

Does anyone know if that is so and if "Yes" at what point (how) it enters the pricing chain please? This because the price of bog standard cooking oil seems to have doubled in the shops. (I know the price of all foods has risen of course.)

I'm thinking that the price hike is more likely to be from competition over who gets the produce from fields. I'm sure I didn't dream the tax thing hence wondering how it's imposed, if it is indeed being imposed.

Thank you

Mo

I think you only start paying tax on it as a vehicle fuel after you have used 2500 litres or something similar.

Yeah, you can use an awful lot (from one person's perspective) before you have to pay tax, but I've noticed like you that rapeseed oil's over £1 a litre, which doesn't make it all that much cheaper than diesel. Guess that's retail, though. You could get it cheaper wholesale, I guess, and you're supposed to use waste oil rather than fresh stuff, which is presumably cheaper still - if you can find someone to sell it to you!

They removed the requirement to pay duty if you are a small producer of fuel from veg oil about a year back , though I don't know the exact figure off the top of my head.

It does really only make a big difference if you can get waste oil very cheaply though.

Many thanks for replies, always appreciated as I hate it when everything in my thinking is up in the air and I haven't even one anchor point that gives me an "Ah! I see" moment.

Mo

Cooking oil increased in price, beacuse of the increase in car use IIRC.

Cooking oil increased in price, beacuse of the increase in car use IIRC.

Most of the price rise in cooking oil is down to the rise in crude price which has then been mirrored in vegetable oil prices as it became more cost efficient to use bio products where feasible.- supply and demand really

I think you only start paying tax on it as a vehicle fuel after you have used 2500 litres or something similar.

Yes this is correct

Makro are currently selling 20 ltr containers for £17.75 with no vat which works out at 89ppl. Mix this in at 20% on a 55 ltr tank and your saving £3.74 a tank based on 123ppl for diesel. Over a year I would save about £200 using this. This may not be much to some people or even cosidered to be worth the hassle but as far as I am concerned it's £200 in my pocket which wouldn't be there. Thats a set of tyres or possibly we can afford a short break somewhere as a family. It also means I give less money to the muppets who ru(i)n this country which has to be good.

I normally use recycled WVO as this is far more morally and environmentally agreeable but my supply has recently dried up so now I am just trying to save a few quid until I can get a new supply of the dirty stuff!

Taxing this as road fuel on top of everything else would gain nothing, it's not worth much in terms of cash to them, it's just a politcal football. It would go against their "Green" policy and shoot a lot of their current tax changes in the foot. Having said that, with this lot anything is possible. I expect we will be taxed on how much we pi55 before long.

Edited 18 September, 200817 yr by Decron

Lllanelli is the first time I remember this issue appearing in the national news, October 2002

Frying squad foils cooking oil car scam | UK news | The Guardian

...The Asda supermarket in Llanelli, south Wales, has slapped a ration on cooking oil sales, after astonished internal auditors found that it was selling far more than any other outlet in the country. Customs investigators are also involved in the "sniff patrols", which home in on any car smelling like a mobile fish and chip shop.

...

According to one victim of the crackdown, who did not want to be named, substituting 32p-a-litre cooking oil, with a dash of methanol, worked as sweetly in his diesel Subaru as the real, 73p-a-litre thing.

...

Dummies Guide to current situation: How to run your car on chip oil - Greenlife - News - Manchester Evening News

And what about the Chancellor?

That's the really good bit. The law changed last year (2007) to encourage people to experiment with new forms of fuel. A motorist who uses less than 2,500 litres of chip fat fuel each year - 50 litres a week - doesn't need to pay any tax or duty. Those who use more than 2,500 litres per year must register with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and will pay excise duty for fuel above that limit. If the fuel meets a level of purity set by the Government, then excise duty is discounted by 20p from the standard rate of 50.35p to 30.35p per litre. Fuel which doesn't meet the required purity standard is taxed at the standard rate. The standard duty and VAT burden on a £1.25 litre of diesel is 69p - which would remain in your pocket rather than the Government's coffers if you burnt less than 2,500 litres of vegetable oil each year.