The Federation of Consumer Associations in Action (FACUA), is monitoring the prices of gas stations throughout the Spanish territory. Thus, this Tuesday, March 24, the average price of gasoline stands at 1.583 €/liter -2.100 €/liter in the most expensive one- and diesel has an average price of 1.771 €/liter -and a maximum of 2.205€/liter-. In this context, FACUA has denounced that “one out of every four gas stations” has benefited from the VAT reduction as a consequence of the anti-crisis plan of the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
The package of economic measures of the decree that has been recently approved by the Executive to mitigate the consequences of the Iran war, grants the competence to the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) to act as supervisors so that no company benefits from the anti-crisis plan and that, if this happens, "it will be severely punished" -according to the words of the president in his appearance.
However, the general secretary of FACUA, Rubén Sánchez, intervened this Monday on the ‘TVE’ program, Mañaneros, and stated: “Fuel prices have dropped less than they should have due to the VAT reduction". Thus, he denounced on Javier Ruiz's program, that the diesel price reduction was not fully passed on to the consumer. "An average of 18 cents is what diesel should have dropped, but it dropped 16 cents", he explained, pointing out that "this means that there are gas stations that took advantage of the occasion to apply a hidden price increase. They kept part of the VAT reduction". Likewise, he criticized that "there were gas stations that had the absolute audacity to maintain the same retail price as the previous day and some even raised it".
According to the data analyzed by the association, "one in four gas stations took advantage of Sunday's VAT reduction to apply a hidden price increase". In the case of diesel, of the 9,255 stations that communicated prices to the Ministry for Ecological Transition, 2,337 did not fully pass on the tax reduction: 175 maintained the previous price and 54 even raised it above the level prior to the reduction. The average diesel reduction was 16.1 cents per liter, when it could have been 17.8 cents, and for gasoline, 1,837 gas stations applied hidden increases, of which 177 maintained their price and 40 increased it.
FACUA warns that lowering taxes without establishing “caps on prices or margins” allows companies to continue inflating their profits and that new increases could completely absorb tax cuts.
