Posted yesterday at 4:00 p.m.
On the price of $2 per liter indicated at the pump, what percentage of taxes is deducted? I am not talking about the price of carbon, but about the percentage of taxes that has always existed.
Gaetan Faubert
Mr Faubert,
The price of gasoline exceeded the $2 per liter mark this week at some service stations in the province, which is fueling much discussion.
The Régie de l’énergie du Québec publishes the various components of the price of gasoline every day in several cities in Québec.
However, there is a catch: the contribution from the carbon market that ends up in the coffers of the Electrification and Climate Change Fund (the former Green Fund) is camouflaged in the cost of crude oil. Knowing that this price on carbon was introduced precisely to influence consumer behavior, one may wonder why it is not presented explicitly.
To see this perfectly clearly, we therefore contacted Carol Montreuil, of the Canadian Fuels Association, and Sonia Marcotte, of the Association of Quebec Energy Distributors.
The following table shows, for a price of $2 per litre, where your money is going.
To answer your question directly, excluding the carbon market, the taxes represent 58.2 cents, or 29% of the total, for a price at the pump of $2 per litre.
There are several interesting observations to be made. First, the tax for the financing of public transit of 3 cents per liter is only applied on the territory of the Metropolitan Community of Montreal. The Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region also imposes an increase of 1 cent per liter for the improvement of public transit, but it is offset by a tax reduction of 4.65 cents per liter which applies to remote areas.
Then, in addition to the GST and the QST, the (many!) other gasoline taxes are not calculated in percentages, but in cents. Their amount therefore does not increase with the rise in the price of crude that we are currently experiencing. Remember that this is attributable to the economic sanctions applied to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.
“The price at the refinery varies widely every day, which is exceptional and particular to the situation we are currently experiencing,” says Sonia Marcotte, of the Association of Quebec Energy Distributors.