Life is what happens between WhatsApp forwards.
Yesterday evening, a friend from school WhatsApped a doubt he had. He wanted to know if petrol and diesel prices were high because the Narendra Modi government had to repay oil bonds, which had been issued by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government more than a decade back.
To repay these oil bonds, money is needed. This has led to significantly higher central government taxes on petrol and diesel, which has in turn led to higher pump prices.
However convincing the argument may sound, it’s wrong. 100% wrong. And I have been saying this for a few years now.
Of course, my saying this hardly makes a difference, given that every time petrol and diesel prices rise, WhatsApp starts buzzing all over again with forwards blaming oil bonds issued by the UPA for high petrol and diesel prices. Currently, the price of petrol is more than Rs 100 per litre in several parts of the country.
This high price is on account of a higher excise duty collected by the central government in order to compensate for a fall in corporate tax collections. In that sense, you and I are bearing the cost of lower corporate taxes, in the form of a higher price of petrol and diesel.
Let’s try and understand the issue of high petrol and diesel prices, and why things are the way they are, in some detail.
1) Crude oil prices have risen between last year and now. In June 2020, the average price of the Indian basket of crude oil was at $40.63 per barrel. As of June 16, 2021, the price was at $73.18 per barrel. Clearly, this is one reason behind the rise in petrol and diesel prices, but this isn’t the only reason, and not even the main one.
2) Before getting into any other detail, let’s understand what oil bonds are. These bonds were issued by the UPA government to the oil marketing companies (Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum), for the under-recoveries (the difference between the administrative price and the cost) they suffered when selling petrol, diesel, kerosene and domestic cooking gas, below their cost. This happened up until 2009-2010. Officially, these bonds are referred to as special securities issued to oil marketing companies in lieu of cash subsidy.
Instead of compensating companies immediately for the subsidy offered by them, by giving them money, the government gave them oil bonds, which would pay annual interest and mature a few years down the line. By doing this, the government expenditure during those years didn’t go up. This helped control the fiscal deficit in those years, when oil bonds were issued. Fiscal deficit is the difference between what a government earns and what it spends.
3) Of course, these bonds would mature over the years and the government of the day would have to repay them. And that would need money.
So what is the value of these bonds which the government still needs to repay? In a question raised in the Rajya Sabha in December 2018, the government had said: “The current outstanding balance on account of Government of India (GoI) Special Bonds issued to the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in lieu of cash subsidy is about Rs 1.30 lakh crore.”
So, two and a half years back, the value of the outstanding oil bonds had stood at around Rs 1.30 lakh crore. What’s the latest number? Take a look at the following table. It has been sourced from the latest government budget. It lists out the different oil bonds that are still to be repaid, with their maturity dates. 
Source: https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/doc/rec/allrec.pdf
What does this table tell us? It tells us that as of March 2021, the total outstanding oil bonds issued by the government stood at Rs 1,30,923 crore. Or the same as what the government had told the Rajya Sabha in December 2018.
4) In fact, the amount of outstanding oil bonds has barely changed during Modi government’s tenure. Look at the following tabled sourced from the 2014-15 budget, presented in July 2014, after Narendra Modi became prime minister.
Source: https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/budget2014-2015/ub2014-15/rec/annex6e.pdf
As of March 2014, the total outstanding oil bonds stood at Rs 1,34,423 crore. Two different oil bonds with maturity amounts of Rs 1,750 crore each, matured in 2014-15, on March 7, 2015, and March 23, 2015, respectively. This brought down to the total outstanding oil bonds to Rs 1,30,923 crore, and which is the current outstanding amount as well.
The point being that the government hasn’t had to repay any outstanding oil bonds since March 2015. Of course, it has had to pay an interest on these oil bonds, like it does on all other bonds.
How much is this interest? As the government told the Rajya Sabha in December 2018: “The annual aggregated amount of Rs 9,989.96 crore was paid every year during 2015-16 to 2017-18 and the similar amount is required to be paid in the current financial year.”
Given that, the outstanding amount of oil bonds didn’t change through 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21, the government would have paid the same amount as interest in each of these years, as it did during 2015-16 to 2017-18.
How does the situation look in 2021-22, the current financial year? As can be seen from both the tables (I know the tables are not very clear. If you really want to verify the data, the source of the tables is available just below them. All you need to do is click), Rs 5,000 crore of bonds are due to be repaid on October 16 and November 28, respectively, later this year. This amounts to Rs 10,000 crore in total.
Over and above this, interest needs to be repaid on the outstanding bonds. Given that Rs 10,000 crore worth of bonds of the total Rs 1,30,923 crore of oil bonds, will be repaid during this financial year, the interest to be paid on the remaining bonds will be less than Rs 9,989.96 crore that the government has been paying year on year. A back of the envelope calculation tells us that the interest to be paid this year should amount to around Rs 9,500 crore.
Hence, in total, the government needs Rs 19,500 crore to repay oil bonds as well as pay interest on them during 2021-22. When it comes to government finances, this is small change.
5) If we look at the excise duty collected on petroleum products over the years, data from Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell tells us that it stood at Rs 99,068 crore in 2014-15, the financial year in which Narendra Modi was sworn in as prime minister.
The number reached Rs 2,23,057 crore in 2019-20. It touched Rs 2,35,811 crore between April and December 2020, the first nine months of 2020-21. Given this, it would have crossed Rs 3,00,000 crore during 2020-21.
In 2021-22, the central government expects to collect more than Rs 3,00,000 crore through excise duties on petroleum products. A look at this year’s budget tells us that the government hopes to collect Rs 74,350 crore on special additional duty of excise on motor spirit(petrol) and Rs 1,98,000 crore through duty of excise on motor spirit and high-speed diesel oil (road and infrastructure cess). Just this adds to close to Rs 2.75 lakh crore.
Over and above this, one needs to pay a basic excise duty on every litre of petrol and diesel purchased, and there is an agriculture infrastructure and development cess to be paid as well. Clearly, this year, the government will earn more than Rs 3 lakh crore from different kinds of excise duties on petroleum products.
From February 2, 2021, the total excise duty on petrol and diesel has stood at Rs 32.90 per litre and Rs 31.80 per litre, respectively. The total central excise duties on petrol and diesel have been rising since 2014. They had stood at Rs 10.38 per litre and Rs 4.52 per litre in March 2014.
In fact, even in April 2020, they had stood at Rs 22.98 per litre and Rs 18.83 per litre, respectively.
Between April last year and now, the petrol price is higher by close to Rs 10 per litre just because of higher central government taxes on it. When it comes to diesel, it is higher by close to Rs 13 per litre because of this.
6) There is another small reason for higher prices as well. The state government taxes on petrol and diesel are ad valorem, that is they are a certain percentage of the price charged to dealers plus the excise duty of the central government plus the dealer commission on every litre of petrol and diesel sold.
Take a look at the following table, which has the detail for petrol sold in Delhi.
Source: https://www.bharatpetroleum.com/pdf/MS_Webupload_16.06.2021.pdf.
The price of petrol charged to dealers in Delhi by Bharat Petroleum was at Rs 37.68 per litre as on June 16. On this there was an excise duty charged by the central government of Rs 32.90 per litre along with a dealer commission of Rs 3.80 per litre. This adds up to Rs 74.38 per litre.
On this, the Delhi government charges a value added tax of 30%, which amounts to Rs 22.32 per litre. This leads to a retail selling price of Rs 96.70 per litre (Rs 74.38 plus Rs 22.32) in Delhi.
Like, the Delhi government, other state governments also charge a value added tax or a sales tax on petrol and diesel sold in their respective territories. The 30% tax charged by the Delhi government is ad valorem. Hence, if the petrol price charged to dealers goes up as oil price goes up, the tax collected by the Delhi government also goes up.
Over and above this, when the central government increases the excise duty on petrol, the tax collected by the Delhi government (and all other governments) goes up because the state government charges a value added tax on dealer price plus excise duty plus dealer commission.
Hence, every time you and I buy petrol or diesel, we are paying a tax on tax. This is an anomaly that needs to be set right. And state governments need to charge a sales tax just on the dealer price and commission, and not on the central government excise duty as well.
7) A major reason for the central government implementing a high excise duty on petrol and diesel, lies in the fact that the government’s tax revenues as a proportion of the size of the Indian economy, measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), has been falling over the years.
Look at the following chart. It plots the ratio of gross tax revenue earned by the central government as a proportion of the GDP.
Source: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy and Controller General of Accounts.
What does this chart show? It shows that the gross tax revenue as a percentage of the GDP reached an all-time high of 12.11% in 2007-08. The gross tax revenue was at 11.22% of the GDP in 2017-18 and fell to 10.25% of the GDP in 2020-21.
The recent fall has been more because of a fall in corporate tax collections. In 2017-18, the corporate tax collections amounted to a total of 3.34% of the GDP and fell to 2.32% of the GDP in 2020-21. This was despite the listed companies registering bumper profits during the financial year.
Corporate taxes have come down primarily on account of the base tax rate being cut from 30% to 22% in September 2019 and to 15% from the earlier 25% for new manufacturing companies.
In absolute terms, the total corporate tax collected in 2019-20 had stood at Rs 5.57 lakh crore. It fell to Rs 4.57 lakh crore in 2020-21, thanks to lower tax rates. The collections of the goods and services tax have also not gone along expected lines.
To compensate for this to some extent, the government has had to increase the excise duty on petroleum products. Hence, it is only fair to say that the cost of lower corporate tax rates for the government, is being borne by citizens in the form of higher petrol and diesel prices. There is no free lunch, as I keep reminding.
To conclude, while the revenue earned by the government can vary, its expenditure doesn’t. It usually goes up year on year. In 2017-18, the total expenditure to GDP ratio stood at 12.53%. This jumped to 17.47% in 2020-21. Of course, 2020-21, could very well be an anomaly given that the size of the economy (GDP) contracted.
Nevertheless, the expenditure in 2019-20 had also stood at a higher 13.20% of the GDP, while the gross tax collections fell. And someone had to pay for this.