So who gets to keep the quarter?
Diesel fuel and home heating oil are pretty much interchangeable. The same stuff, colored differently so that the tax man can easily check that some trucker isn’t screwing the government out of about 50 cents in state and federal highway excise taxes by using it to drive around and make deliveries.
Homeowners, on the other hand, can be seen at the diesel pump pouring 5 and10 gallons at a time into containers to take home for keeping warm. (Massachusetts has a tax refund form that can be used to claim a 21 cent a gallon refund for those who do that.)
So here’s the question. The price of home heating oil has climbed to within about 25 cents of the price at the pump for diesel. Since there is no highway tax for home heating, one might wonder why the price of home heating oil isn’t about 50 cents less than over-the-road diesel. Historically, that has always been the case.
Two hundred gallons of oil for keeping warm now costs more than $600, a hefty chunk of homeowners’ change and many heating oil companies are now refusing to deliver just 100 gallons at a time. They argue the cost of making the trip out to your house has risen and so they have raised the minimum delivery to 150 gallons.
The question is a simple one.
If there is no tax, then how can home heating oil dealers justify charging a retail price that seems to include an extra quarter?
So who is keeping the quarter?
