Citizens of Utah... WAKE THE HELL UP!!

Have you bought motor oil at Wal-Mart lately? Have you been asked to bend over at the register, while the cashier scanned your Quaker State, Havoline, or Mobil oil purchase? Or, perhaps you were bent over by the cashier without noticing it? Look at your receipt! Here's the deal...

Title 40 (40-6-14) of the Utah Code establishes a "Fee on oil and gas", and it reads:

"(1) (a) There is levied a fee as provided in Subsection (1)(b) for oil and gas:

(i) produced; and
(ii) (A) saved;
(B) sold; or
(C) transported from the field in Utah where the oil or gas is produced.

(b) The fee imposed under this Subsection (1) is equal to the product of:

(i) .002; and

(ii) the value of the oil or gas determined in accordance with Section 59-5-103.1."

(2) (a) The State Tax Commission shall administer the collection of the fee, including any penalties and interest.
(b) The money collected shall be deposited in the Oil and Gas Conservation Account created in Section 40-6-14.5.
(c) Time periods for the State Tax Commission to allow a refund or assess the fee shall be determined in accordance with Section 59-5-114.
(3) (a) Each person having an ownership interest in oil or gas at the time of production shall be liable for a proportionate share of the fee equivalent to that person's ownership interest.

So, what does all that crap mean? It means that there is a "fee" imposed upon "Each person having an ownership interest in oil or gas at the time of production" equal to 2/10 of a penny. (Section 59-5-103.1 is simply the statutory authority establishing the Utah State sales tax, and explains how much and for what goods and service sales tax will be chaged.)

Nowhere in the statute does it charge this "fee" to the retail seller, nor does it allow the retail seller to pass the fee along to the end user. Further, according to the statute, the "fee" is only placed upon oil and gas that is produced; and saved; sold; or transported from the field in Utah where the oil or gas is produced. However, Wal-Mart (and possibly other retail sellers of oil in Utah) charges a 4¢ ($0.04) "oil use fee" on one quart of motor oil. If the sales unit is a U.S. quart, then the fee charged by Wal-Mart is 20 times what the State of Utah authorized. This raises four questions in my mind:

1. Was that quart of Quaker State motor oil produced; and saved, sold or transported from the field in Utah where the oil was produced?

2. Under what statutory authority does Wal-Mart collect the "oil use fee" from the end user (purchaser) when the fee is imposed upon - and supposedly paid by - the oil producer?

3. Why hasn't the State either (a) stopped this practice of passing the fee along to the customer, or (b) amended the Utah Code, Title 40, to permit the practice of passing the fee along to the customer, but at no more than the prescribed rate of .002 per unit.

4. Who's bending us over further, Wal-Mart with its illegal practice, or the State of Utah for permitting it to continue?

It's not just a few pennies we're talking about here. Well, okay, it is just a few pennies for each of us individually, but Wal-Mart is probably raking in several thousands of dollars per day in illicit profits. And, they're doing it 4¢ at a time in their Utah stores!

And, the State of Utah can call it a "fee" all they want... it's just another TAX... in fees clothing! Somebody has apparently determined that we have too much disposable-by-choice income left after paying bills and all the other taxes with which we've been burdened by your government...

I'm Gil (and you're not), and I approved this blog!

Government Control Is Not Needed Where Obama Wants It!!

Your government wants to stick it's bureaucratic nose into everything that affects average, working-class people. Everything except those areas it should be investigating and regulating more strictly! For example...

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. reported quarterly earnings Thursday that easily beat analysts' expectations on higher crude prices.

The world's largest public energy company reported net income of $7.56 billion, or $1.60 a share, in the second quarter, up 91% from $3.95 billion, or 81 cents a share, in the same period in 2009.

Earnings for the first half of 2010, excluding special items, were $13.9 billion, up 60% over the first half of 2009." (Emphases added)

Yes, my friends, that is Billion with a capital "B". The concept of a million of anything is difficult for most of us to envision, and the term billion just boggles the mind. Maybe this will help get it into perspective - a billion minutes ago, Christ was alive. Here's a picture showing the relationship between one thousand, one million and one billion -

There is a 6" difference between the million point and the billion point on this line. (A trillion [a figure our government loves to throw at us] would be marked 500 feet to the right of the billion mark.) Now, think of that number in terms of dollars - the dollars you spend at the gas pump, the dollars you spend for groceries, the dollars you spend for clothing... and your tax dollars!

Diesel fuel, the least refined and least expensive to produce, currently hovers at around $4 per gallon. More than premium gasoline! Do you still wonder why the cost of "goods and services" is skyrocketing upward? Understand that goods do not magically appear in Wal-Mart at the beginning of each business day, nor do groceries breed on the shelves of your local Kroger or Safeway grocery stores when the lights go out. These items are transported to every retail store in our country by diesel-fueled delivery vehicles, whether they be 18-wheelers, railroad trains, or a combination. The oil companies have taken our nation hostage! And your government has not done - or even said - a thing about it. It's areas like this that we need government mandated price caps! The workers of this nation need gasoline to get to and from their place of employment in order to earn a living so they can afford to buy those goods and services. Gasoline now costs between $3.25 and $3.65 per gallon and the price is increasing almost daily! The excuses used by big oil are "There's unrest in Saudi Arabia", "The middle east crisis is driving our costs up", and "It's the Yemeni problem". What's wrong with this picture? The problem is Big Oil's corporate GREED! Individually, or even collectively, We The People can do next to nothing about it directly. Government intervention mandating price caps is the only solution.

How do we get that done? Write, email, or telephone your elected Congressional Representatives - including Senators - and tell them that We The People need relief from the price gouging oil corporations economy-crushing GREED!

(Because our national economy is "in the dumper", China is campaigning at the U.N. to have the U.S. dollar replaced by the Chinese yuan as the "reserve currency". For those of you who may not know exactly what the "reserve currency" is, it is the global currency of international trade. If China is successful in their bid, it will further diminish the U.S. in the eyes of "the global community".)

I'm Gil, and I approved this blog!