If people in the US think their gas prices are high then they should see what the people in Korea are paying for their gas:

Seoul is the eighth most expensive place in the world for drivers to fill up their tanks as the city’s gasoline price averages $7.33 per gallon (about 4 liters), higher than Tokyo’s $6.3 and Singapore’s $6.13.

Over half of the money South Korean drivers pay for gasoline ends up in government coffers as various taxes, including transportation and special excise taxes.

The Associates for International Research, a Massachusetts relocation consulting firm that tracks the cost of living in dozens of countries, said recently that drivers in Oslo, the capital of Norway, pay the highest retail price for a gallon of gasoline in the world at $9.85, followed by $9.43 in Paris and $9.24 in Copenhagen.

But in oil-rich Venezuela, drivers pay only 12 cents a gallon, the lowest gasoline price in the world. Gas is cheaper than milk in the South American nation, which spends an estimated $11 billion subsidizing gasoline per year.

The institue said oil producing countries usually subsidize fuel to share the wealth and keep citzens happy. Drivers pay less than 50 cents a gallon when they fill up in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It also said retail gas prices in each nation are inflenced by a number of factors, including the cost of refining, distribution and marketing. But the biggest single variable is government policy as some countries tax gasoline heavily, while others subsidize it to make it cheap.

According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, various local and national taxes account for about 57.3 percent of retail gasoline price here, substantially higher than the United States’ 19 percent.  [Korea Times]

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