Why do we claim the OIL companies are gouging while?

The OIL Industry gets BILLIONS of dollars of OUR tax dollars in direct subsidies every year. And that's not even counting INdirect subsidies like the cost of our military having to protect our foreign oil interests. Do you think the OIL Companies pay for weapons, ammunition, kevlar vests, humvees, fuel, food, etc? NO! The American tax payers DO! Who reaps all of the PROFITS? The OIL Companies! And who pays the highest cost of all? The troops who put their lives on the line to protect Corporate Profits. FactCheck.org had an article related to this topic you can read below, but believe me, I am NO defender of oil companies or their record profits at the expense of the American consumers.

Let’s start with the basics. According to the Energy Information Administration, in February 2008 state and federal excise taxes accounted for 13 percent of the average price per gallon of regular gasoline sold in the U.S.

That figures to just under 40 cents per gallon as a national average. However, the actual amount paid varies greatly by state. Federal taxes are a flat 18.4 cents per gallon of regular gasoline, no matter the price at the pump. State taxes range anywhere from 7.5 cents to 34 cents per gallon, according to the Federal Highway Administration. And on top of that, the oil industry points to additional taxes and fees, such as sales taxes and inspection and environmental fees, that drive up the state-local fees to as much as 45.5 cents per gallon (in California).

And even these figures don’t account for income taxes that the companies pay on their profits. Those taxes would drive the tax total higher yet, but we know of no authoritative source that has attempted to break down how much income tax should be allocated to each gallon of gasoline. One big problem in trying to calculate such a per-gallon amount is that income can be earned on the sale of any number of products besides gasoline, such as diesel, home heating fuel, jet fuel, natural gas, crude oil and whatever else a company might sell.

The same goes for profits. The EIA does not attempt to calculate an average figure for the profit earned on each gallon of gasoline. "It’s not that these guys [the oil companies] are obfuscating; it’s that the processes are intertwined," EIA economist Neal Davis told FactCheck.org. He added that trying to reduce profit figures to a per-gallon average for gasoline would be "heroic at best" and "sadly misinformed … at worst."

Nevertheless, the oil industry has tried to do something close to that. A publication from the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s principal lobbying arm, displays a graphic stating that "taxes" made up 15 percent of the price of gasoline at the pump in 2007 (that figure comes from EIA) and showing a figure for "earnings" (a measurement API prefers to straight "profit") of 8.3 percent. This figure is the average earnings for the industry per dollar of sales.

On closer examination, however, that 8.3 percent earnings figure turns out to be after-tax income. The pre-tax profit margin would be considerably higher. And that’s only an average. The profits of any particular oil company could be higher or lower. For example, in 2007, ExxonMobil's after-tax earnings were 10.4 percent, much higher than the industry average. Furthermore, any particular gallon of gasoline might have passed through several companies as the product moved from the oil well to the refiner to the retailer that owns the pump.

Another complicating factor is that the percentages change from month to month, sometimes dramatically. State and federal excise taxes are generally fixed at a certain number of pennies per gallon, so as the price of gasoline rises, the percentage paid in excise taxes goes down. As shown in this breakdown, state and federal excise taxes made up 32 percent of what motorists paid at the pump in January 2000, when the average price for regular was only $1.29.

"Unfortunately, there’s no real simple answer," says Lucian Pugliaresi, president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, which conducts economic analyses of energy issues and is supported by oil companies. It depends on when the gasoline was purchased. "If you bought it right now, I’d say the government is making more." If the gasoline was purchased a month ago or last year, that may not have been the case. And the answer further depends on what type of company the question refers to. Refineries, Pugliaresi says, are hurting right now. "If you’re an independent refinery, the answer is definitely they’re making a lot less than the government."

So, to the question of whether motorists pay more per gallon to the government than to oil-company profits, we can say only this: The answer depends on the state in which the fuel is purchased, the company that produced it and sold it, and when the motorist bought it.

Lets say that the price of gas goes up by 10 cents tomorrow. That does not mean that the gas company is making 10 cents more profit per gallon. The gas company is probably making the very same profit they were when the gas was cheaper. They are trying to get everything fixed and going again but some of these chemical plants are ancient. The environmental red tape is not slowing down the building of new plants. It has halted it altogether. Now the oil and gas companies are stuck with aging plants that are going to fall apart even more as time goes by. This will make the price of gas go higher and higher. Also, there is the cost to find new oil. A lot of money is spent to find oil. That money has to come from somewhere. It comes from the money spent at the pump. As oil becomes harder to find and extract, then it will be more expensive to find and extract. That will drive up the price of oil and also of gas. Gas is not some magical substance that the oil companies are finding and turning around and selling. They have to work hard to get it. These companies are not making obscene profits. If they lower their profits, they will lose investors. That will make the price of gas go even higher because the oil companies will not have enough capital to pay to keep things maintained the way they should. Go and look at the stock of these guys. They make profit but they are not setting the world on fire with the money they make. Investing in an oil company will not make a person rich. Supply and demand. That is what it is all about. There has never been any proof that the oil companies have been rigging the prices. With all of the investigations, there has never been an instance to show that this is going on.

Stop drinking that koolaide. You can look up what the components of gasoline prices are on any given day, and right now at 3.60 a gallon, taxes are 10% of the price roughly.

I don't know where you got your tax data, but this is from the DOE:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/gasolin...

" Federal excise taxes are 18.4 cents per gallon and State excise taxes average about 21 cents per gallon."

The bulk of the price is the cost of oil. At 120 dollars a barrel, the average profit on a barell of oil is around 300% and makes up nearly 70% of the price.

Here are some international break even prices along with profitability at only 100 dollars a barrel:

Profitability at $100/barrel oil

------------------------------------

Nation----Break-Even Price---Profitability

-------------------------------------

Kuwait----------17-------- ------------ 488%

U.A.E.-----------25-------- ----------- 300%

Saudi Arabia--30-------- ------------233%

Qatar------------30----------- ---------233%

Canada's oil sands-33---- --------203%

Bahrain---------40---------- ---------150%

Oman-40--------50--------- ---------100%

First of all, your correct. For those who doubt you, here is a breakdown of the Price per gallon....(All state and federal take is lumped into one)

I am going to use the state of California as an example.

.39 cents go to oil company refining, marketing and distribution costs and their profit. (so whatever they have left after refining, marketing and distro is their profit)

.66 cents go to State and Federal taxes

$2.80 go to the UAE and other crude oil producing companies (very few U.S.)

Bringing your total cost to about $3.80 a gallon.

I'm no genius...but it looks more like we are getting screwed by the UAE than anything else....

Now if Congress would stop blocking the Presidents pursuit of getting Crude from other sources, then that price would drop and people would be content again...but that's not going to happen.

Yeah, at only $3.50 a gallon, the American people are ripping off the OIL companies!! Exxon only made $40 BILLION in profits last year when they could've made $60 BILLION! Get off your butts you lazy liberals, get some jobs and pay $10 per gallon! This isn't Communist China!

the alcohol industry in the US reported profits nearly twice as high as the oil industry reported last year in the US.

Correct! The government is getting more than its fair share.

You are correct. No arguement here.