How much is your local "Trump at the Pump Tax?"

$3.70 today

 

$4.39 was the cheapest I could find for 85 octane.

 

$3.29 for yesterday's fill-up.

exactly $1 more than pre-conflict..........

 

$3.29 for yesterday's fill-up.
Shell, top-tier, 87 octane

exactly $1 more than pre-conflict...

 

For the summer solstice I took a day road trip over the Sierras in my ct200h (what an amazing car), down CA 108 to Sonora and then through Angels Camp (what a nice name for a town) and back up on CA 4. Highway 4 has a 5 mile section that's narrow steep and winding with no center stripe, and steep drop offs with no guard rail. It has a sign that says "no vehicles over 28 ft long" It's amazing how many drivers can't get close to the edge, so they hang over the center when you pass them.

Gas in Carson City NV $4.46 a gallon regular. It's .50 cents higher in Reno because of taxes. NV gets it's fuel from CA so it's surprising that it's actually cheaper than in CA. Must be even more taxes there. Made the whole trip on one tank at $35.

 

I'm seeing fuel taxes of $0.2381/gal in Nevada, vs $0.7092 + sales tax (7.25% to 11+%) in California. That makes for a considerable price difference even if they are getting the same fuel blends from the same refineries.

Do CA refineries ship their own CA-compliant blends to Nevada, or do they make some cheaper blends to export to Nevada? Are Nevadans paying for CA's cap-and-trade system?

When we go skiing at Mammoth Lakes, I usually fill up in Minden or Gardnerville to ensure enough range to avoid buying fuel while in California. Lee Vining and other Mono County towns along the way have California's highest fuel prices. Maybe should watch Carson NV fuel prices too. Also fill up in Klamath Falls to avoid buying fuel while crossing NE CA.

Because most of our trips through that region are in winter, Sonora and Monitor and Tioga (east entrance of Yosemite NP) Passes are closed for the season. But we have been across each of those a couple times for autumn trips.

 

Interesting. The Colorado fuel tax is around 21¢ a gallon. Interestingly, this hasn't been changed for decades, nor has the federal gas tax. And that's where the funding for roads and bridges comes from in Colorado. This is why so many roads are in disrepair and getting worse. Personally I don't understand the flat rate tax. Why not a flat rate that increases yearly with inflation? Why not a percentage that would assume fuel costs will increase about the same as inflation?

 

Your assuming that $0.21 is going directly to road maintenance; but it goes into the general fund - then gets redistributed to the state's annual funding priorities. Keep that in mind; next time your state or local gov't wants to raise taxes for something. Unless that tax increase is specifically set aside for whatever excuse they are using - it'll probably go into a politician's back pocket.
Take our California lottery for instant. The state lottery was passed because proceeds would go to our schools. Well the state legislature reduced school funding by an equivalent amount that the lottery was contributing to our school system annually.

YMMV

 

Why not a fuel tax rate that increases with inflation?

Because politics and elections and voters.

BTW, in most jurisdictions, fuel taxes are quite insufficient to pay for the full road system. Even before accounting for the increasing fleet fuel economy directly reducing total fuel tax collections.

 

California isn't the only state that does that, proving the point that Lotteries are a tax on....stupid people.

Fuel here is below $3.10 and dropping.

Don't remember what it was pre-war or pre-emancipation - but I stop thinking about gas prices when it goes below $3.
My commute to work is now roughly 2 miles, and the closest of the local stores are less than half of that.

With the exceptions of my sojourns to the home sod - nearly all of my driving is either optional or done with a company car (and a company fuel card.)

 

Or just express it as a rate—like most taxes already are—not some fixed dollars and cents amount, but a fixed percentage of something that already increases with inflation, the fuel price.

 

The better question is: WHY fuel taxes AT ALL?!

There is a responsible answer to the question.
The lie that we're constantly told, among MANY others - is that fuel taxes are supposed to be a USER tax meant to fund and maintain road infrastructure.

 

Nope, I didn't assume that. At least in Colorado it does not go into a general fund. I'm not sure if they're state or federal laws (maybe my county's laws???), but I do know that the law says road repair can only come from gas tax and a few other grants and things, but mainly gas tax. So no general fund for road repair. So that $0.21 does go directly to road maintenance and nothing from the general fund goes to road maintenance.

 

Does it also say gas tax can only go to road repair? Both questions are on topic here.

 

Good question that I'm not sure of the answer. All I know is it's about 21¢ from state gas tax and about 19¢ from federal gas tax.

County to consider new tax for roads - Gunnison Country Times

 

god forbid if fuel prices drop from $5/gallon to $2½ /gallon as % wise - the tax revenue would become teensy-weensy.
Then there's those damnable % of plug-in drivers that avoid the tax all together.

Seems a better way to capture Road repair funds would be to put the taxes on tires. You have a little shopping cart size car that has little weight & your tires do less damage - so they'd get taxed far less than drivers of big heavy duty truck tires - especially for those driven 50X more miles throughout the year.

 

The smaller car has tires with smaller contact patches, and the truck has tires with bigger contact patches and more of them. The difference in pressure from the contact patch to the road may be less than you'd think.

 

As I stated earlier; it's a proposal - to make it palpable to the voters. It's the final draft of that law that matters. So remember the lottery example I gave you in #748. Reading between the lines in that article; The county allocates road maintenance funding annually from the general fund; just like every other state and county organization. What was strangely missing from that article is total revenue generated from that tax. The author could've easily included that total statewide revenue collected from gas taxes; don't know if your state would break it down by county revenue sources. The author did mention that the revenue distribution did favor urban area roads; so he/she dug deep enough and had the numbers; but decided NOT to publish; likely because it undermined the article.
Just to play devils advocate; if your county passed that extra tax - the gas prices in your county goes up while surrounding counties stay the same. Will that significantly increase revenue for road maintenance for your county; under your current state allocation rules?????

The devil is in the details.............

 

Some states has already been looking at an annual mileage tax based on gross weight for over a decade - the issue is implementation and businesses isn't going to like it.
They did pass the extra hybrid/EV tax, when the hype was that "we weren't paying our fair share of fuel taxes" using the same non-logical reason that we were beating up the road with our heavy battery packs and using less gasoline. Don't know why the same logic wasn't used on large commercial trucks that has documented tonnage; that actually damages our roads.

 

From what most claim, commercial trucks are already taxed pretty heavily - but haven't researched the formula. In any event the trade off, high or low delivery costs will ultimately affect the products they deliver.