Nefrayu

Demand does change the price. You can see the price drop during economic downturns. Supply and demand are two sides of a single equation. It simply doesn’t make sense to say that only one impacts prices.

Prices had been dropping recently despite KSA reducing supply, until the attacks in Israel that is.

Is not a monopoly though, yes there are cartels but it’s not a monopoly. The less demand there is for oil the less power OPEC has to manipulate prices. They will be left scrambling to supply the remaining demand. Supply and demand isn’t a myth, OPEC simply manipulate supply to influence the price.

You can do that in Ireland too. For health insurance the insurer handles the tax and takes it off what they charge you. For charities if you donate over a certain threshold the charity gets to claim back the tax you paid for themselves. For ongoing things you inform Revenue and they let your employer know to collect less tax. Then for other things you just tell Revenue and they refund you.

Oh that sounds somehow more annoying than just having to pay it yourself, seeing as you have to do the calculations yourself anyway.

To be fair it possible to be owed a refund or owe extra tax in Ireland too. If you changed jobs and didn’t inform Revenue they won’t apply tax credits until they know the full story for example. You never have to calculate how much you owe or are due though, at least not for an individual. You just tell them what your salary is, or if you’re claiming a credit.

In Ireland and I believe most other European countries the tax is just taken out of your salary/wage by your employer and sent to Revenue. So unless you do something taxable outside of a normal wage you largely don’t need to worry about it.