Festival of taxes.

"India's wholesale inflation eased to a four-month low at 1.31% on an annual basis in August from 2.04% in July, as fuel prices turned negative and the pace of rise in food prices slowed." "Fuel and power saw a deflation in August, as against 1.72% rise in July, government data showed. Food prices, a key indicator, slowed to 3.26% in August from 3.55% in the previous month." ET. "Global oil benchmark Brent crude futures settled at their lowest level since December 2021 on Tuesday (10 Sept), after Opec+ revised down its demand forecast for this year and 2025, offsetting supply concerns from Tropical Storm Francine. Brent crude futures settled down $2.65, or 3.69%, to $69.19 a barrel." Reuters. Brent crude is trading at $73.43 this morning. oilprice.com. The retail price of petrol in the US was $3.180 per gallon on 16 September. eia.gov.  One US dollar buys Rs 83.77 this morning (xe.com) and one US gallon is about 3.8 liters  (unitconvertors.net). Therefore, the price of petrol in the US is around Rs 70 per liter. In comparison, the retail price of petrol in Delhi is at Rs 94.72 per liter. NDTV. The difference of nearly Rs 25 in the price of petrol between the US and India is because the Indian government increases duties and taxes to take advantage of any fall in the international price of crude oil. Taxes account for over 55% of the price of petrol and over 50% of the price of diesel. cleartax.in. Not just excise duties, the central government was collecting windfall taxes of Rs 1,850 per tonne on domestic crude (Mint). While windfall taxes on domestic crude and painful excise duties on imported crude nullified any gains for the people, taxes on cooking oil have been jacked up apparently to benefit our farmers. "India has raised the basic import tax on crude and refined edible oils by 20 percentage points, the government said, as the world's biggest edible oil importer tries to help protect farmers reeling from lower oilseed prices." Customs duty was hiked by 20% to 27.5% on crude palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil "as they are also subject to India's Agricultural Infrastructure and Development Cess and Social Welfare Surcharge". Duties on refined oils have been increased to 37.75% from 13.75%, a difference of 22%. HT. In a diktat, "The government has asked edible oil processors not to hike retail prices following recent increase in import duties, as there is enough stock of cooking oils that were shipped at a lower duty." ET. Only the government has the right to fleece citizens of India. At the same time they don't want prices to go up just before the festival season which started with Ganesh Chaturthi on 6 September, followed by Durga Puja on 9-13 October and then Diwali on 29 October. High costs of food and fuel will mean less spending on non-essential items like televisions, motorcycles and cars. And that will mean less collection of exorbitant taxes. Blood is finite. You can suck only that much.