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These Six States Just Raised Their Gasoline Tax
With the Fed slowly losing the war of attrition with Saudi Arabia, leading to the recent fade in the dead cat bounce of oil prices witnessed earlier today when oil dropped to the lowest level in 10 weeks, some states have decided that since the shale crisis will continue indefinitely and that gas prices will remain "lower for longer", there is no point in letting yet another crisis go to waste and have decided to promptly take advantage of what may have been a brief boon to consumers by minimizing the "oil crash" windfall and imposing additional gas taxes.
According to the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), starting today, six states will increase their gas taxes to help pay for transportation projects.
Beginning July 1, drivers in Idaho, Georgia, Maryland, Rhode Island, Nebraska and Vermont will be charged more at the pump as a result of laws taking effect at the start states' new fiscal year.
There is some good news: a seventh state, California, is decreasing its gas tax by 6 cents, according to the group.
Then again, after putting the California gas price in context with the rest of the US even after the recent gas price drop...
... the "good news" for California is hardly all that good.
Now back to the bad news for residents in the six states named above, soon spreading to residents of many more states which are sure to take advantage of these low, low gas prices and layer "just a little extra" tax on them.
From The Hill:
ITEP Research Director Carl Davis said Monday in a blog post that the states are increasing their gas taxes by a range of 0.35 cents to 7 cents per gallon in an effort to replace federal transportation funding that has largely dried up in recent years.
"While some drivers may view this as an unwelcome development during the busy summer travel season, the reality is that most of these 'increases' are simply playing catch-up with inflation after years (or even decades) without an update to the gas tax rate," Davis wrote.
"Moreover, these increases will fund infrastructure improvements that directly benefit drivers and other travelers — an especially important step at a time when Congress’ commitment to adequately funding infrastructure remains highly uncertain," he continued.
The largest gas tax hike of the bunch is a 7-cent-per-gallon increase that is scheduled to take effect in Idaho, according to the tax watch groups.
Here is the breakdown:
- Drivers in Georgia will face the second-largest tax hike of the week, when their prices at the pump go up by 6.7 cents per gallon
- Maryland is poised to implement a 1.8-cent-per-gallon increase
- Rhode Island is raising fuel levies by 1 cent per gallon
- Nebraska and Vermont have the smallest gas tax increases, scheduled at 0.5 cents and 0.35 cents per gallon, respectively
That's not all: "The additional money will be collected on top of an 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax charged to all drivers in the U.S. to fill the federal government’s transportation funding coffers.
Lawmakers in Washington face a July 31 deadline to pass federal transportation funding before it expires, and they are struggling to come up with a way to pay for an extension.
Transportation advocates in Washington have pointed to states' willingness to raise their gas taxes as evidence that a hike in the national gas tax hike would be politically palatable.
Conservative groups in Washington have made clear they would consider an increase in the federal fuel levy a tax hike, however.
The Hill also notes that the federal gas tax has been the main source of transportation funding for decades, but it has not been increased since 1993, and more fuel-efficient cars have sapped its buying power. While the tax hike has backing from business associations and unions, opposition from conservative groups, such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth, led GOP leaders in the House to call it a nonstarter.
Ironically, the longer the price of oil remains low, the easier it will be for both the Federal and various State governments to layer taxes on top of the underlying price to he point where whatever "tax savings" may have emerged in the past year will be promptly externalized by various bureaucracies who have decided that too much fo a cheap thing is not good for a consumer, especially a consumer who instead of spending the "gas tax hike" decided to save it, which in the new normal is borderlin illegal.
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California lowering a tax? What the hell happened here.
Where the fuck is the itemized representation including the printing press tax?
WHere have i heard this before...hmmm?
RIPS
Whoa, wait a minute here. I read the California news, and CA says it is ging to raise gasoline taxes.
I've got more important things to worry about. TV Land just pulled "The Dukes Of Hazard" because of the General Lee...
Lil' Bubba "there will be blood"
It's a glitch in the matrix.
What kind of "transportation projects" does Nebraska and Vermont have that they have to raise taxes? No one even fucking lives there.
I don't even live in those states and this still pisses me off.
And for all the liberals that love higher taxes to pay for welfare while also championing for green energy....what happens when everyone installs solar panels and buys electric cars?
Then we won't need electricity anymore, silly :)
Unfortunately my California Licensed advanced propulsion, polution free automobile runs on water.
So when was the last time you were able to drive it?
They'll find a way to tax that.
Oh yea, one way is the car tax. You probably own a Tesla,so that's about $800-$1100 a year for the pleasure of showing off your baby.
You will be taxed by miles driven....already on the table
Look at the highest taxed items, fuel, booze, Cigs. We should all "opt out" for a month, and spend it on ammo.
They install a GPS transponder on the vehicle and charge by the mile. Many states are already considering this.
Light tax. Pretty easy to calculate.
I'll check this off my predictions list from the oil crash 8 months ago.
CA. What a joke.
California: The unauthorized biography of a state that pissed away its culture, natural resources, and the seventh largest economy in the world.
NC already did it.
Massachusetts gas tax is tied to inflation so they don't have to vote for it again-really.
Might sound odd in the midst of the biggest energy boom going on in US History "you could get energy shortages inside the USA" but not every State is an energy producer.
"You have to pay for that" Big Government...and the USA is the largest free trade zone in the world.
Good luck "commandeering" fuel trucks for refined product you don't have and isn't yours to begin with...
The USA has cheap gasoline and expensive cocaine... go figure.
Good news
This is likely to piss people off.
Yeah, stay away from Vermont cause they gotta be raging mad about it, no doubt!
At least in VT you can ccw without a ccw. I'd pay .035 cents for that right.
South Carolina will join this list soon. They are still arguing over how much of an increase, plus whether it should be done with an accompanying income tax CUT.
Georgia gets hit the hardest at 6 cents...but if you check gasbuddy.com, Georgia has low gas prices. 25 cents a gallon lower than in Oregon for instance....So even with their gas tax, they are still paying less than I am. And in California, where they are lowering the gas tax, it will still be 30 cents a gallon more than in Georgia....just sayin
California is a signifant oil producer (200,000 barrels a day I believe) so even though your prices are high you also are "paying yourself" in the form of paying your oil industry out there.
Not all bad per se then.
Plus you have Tesla's..."waste not want not." At some point you won't even need much fuel "riding around in your auto-mobile."
In other words that high price can become an even greater asset..."in the future" of course.
Hard to beat dirt cheap gas....everyday and always.
And of course now we have natural gas too...
A tax is a tax...period.. its all relative, for instance, Georgia has, textiles, timber (especially pine), agriculture (cotton, corn, peanuts, soybeans, poultry)...so expect the items they produce to go up in price...Georgia gas tax is a tax to everyone..
People will be pissed off until the next Jenner/mass shooting/cop thing/sex tape/superbowl. There's only one reason why this shit exists and that's to distract your attention from the people that are STEALING from you.
let her rip. Here comes the trillions in new taxes for the new socialists in USSA. As a none USSAian but living in a socialist country, "you ain't" seen anything yet. 75% of income taxed to pay for all this sheit. Enjoy
It's not like gas taxes are regressive or anything...
Moar taxes can pay for moar government.
Already paying 50plus cents a gallon
$28 bucks for a 5minute emissions test
$16 bucks for state inspection
$4,ooo plus for property tax...
WTF???? fucking just take it all you asswipes
Work harder, quit being lazy like the Greeks.
AND STOP COMPLAINING TOO!
AND DONT FORGET TO VOTE!
HEIL AMERIKA!!!
Give em time,,, Give em time...
This transportation fund they talk about, at the federal level. Where is it? WHat's in it? What's it for?
Eventually, they will (attempt to) tax by miles driven because of better fuel economy, electric cars and fuel cells powered cars such as this one:
https://www.hyundaiusa.com/tucsonfuelcell/
Parasites doing what parasites do best.
And they just laugh at the scathing comments.
They know we'll pay, like good little patriotic Merikans.
Washington State raised them as well 11 cents a gallon. Taking advantage of lower overall prices to razzle dazzle the retarded sheep out here.
Works everytime - just say 'it's for the schools and/or children' and it's a slam dunk.
If you put a measure on the ballot requiring 'in effort to reduce green house gases we now require you to eat dog shit on Sundays' it would most likely pass easily.
Sadly that is not sarc either.
So you do have a major refinery out there so IN THEORY you are getting that money back (in the form of actual refined product is one way to look at it.)
When I lived out that way that refinery had been closed for MANY decades...
Cherry Point? The Tesaro one that blew up a while back? Yes, we do get local product from there, but it's all railed in nowadays. Some from Alaska.
In theory I am not opposed to specific taxes for specific purposes. The 'gas tax' is supposed to be used for roads, but if you have lived out here you know it all goes into the 'general fund' which is a giant money laundering operation (that cannot be audited) and maybe 5 cents on the dollar - if that - ends up on roads.
Washington (King County Seattle metro) is as corrupt as ChiCongo - they are just abit more light handed and discreet.
Central banking siphoning lower sales tax projections by providing petrodollar net gains under gasoline stealth taxation.
Then the media will riffle off purchasing a new channel stuffed vehicle to get into debt.
Oops.
These fukers can't have it both ways. You can't put on fed or state tax levys to try and stop driving and then accomplish your goal of people in gas powered cars, driving less, etc and then say hey wait, we're losing money, so we need to HIKE taxes again. F That! And any "conservative" in Congress who votes to raise gas taxes will end up like Eric Cantor.
Funny fuckers. The thieves complain they haven't had an increase since the early nineties but guess what, I haven't had an income increase since 2001. Eat that, asswipes ! Get your damn hands out of my pockets.
washington state just raised it 11 cents a gallon over the next two years
Never, EVER, let the price decrease of commodities becauser of lack of demand fall to the consumer!!!!
Be happy that more of your hard earned dollars are going to give free shit to parasites who never worked a day in their lives.
One of the first acts of the Jerry Brown administration over in CA a couple years ago was to DOUBLE the gas tax from .18/gal to .36/gal. Nobody noticed....