Illinois'
gasoline tax doubled on July 1, and many local residents say they plan to continue taking advantage of lower out-of-state gas prices, sometimes even making a special trip.
OKLAHOMA CITYAs the dust from the legislative session settles, Oklahoma officials are preparing to implement the state's first
gasoline tax increase since 1986.<br />Until this year, the state government hadn't raised the rate in decades, allowing it to hover at 17 cents per gallon on gasoline and 13 cents per gallon on diesel.
But the program, which is intended eventually to supplant the state's
gasoline tax as a primary source of funding for transportation projects, remains in a limbo of sorts.
The 2018 GRT bonds are additionally payable from the city's allocation of the 10.38% general
gasoline tax and the 0.576% municipal road
gasoline tax.
CONSIDERING THAT THE FEDERAL
gasoline tax has not been raised from its current levels of 23.4 cents for diesel and 18.4 for gasoline since 1993, it's somewhat surprising that it gets as much as attention as it does.
The most affluent households have 10 times the income of the least affluent, but use only four times more gasoline, so a
gasoline tax would be regressive in the sense that the affluent would pay a lower percentage of their income.
Ideally, Congress should raise the national
gasoline tax, which has remained at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993.
An increased adoption of electric vehicles would result in reduced consumption of gasoline and consequently a decrease in
gasoline tax revenue that currently supports infrastructure development and maintenance in the U.S., according to researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Few are aware that the Legislature enacted a law that will increase the
gasoline tax annually by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
Taxing gasoline purchases, which are related to emissions, is an indirect alternative, but the
gasoline tax does not take into account the variation across vehicles in per-gallon emissions.
For the past 50 years, the federal
gasoline tax has provided a stable funding source for maintenance and development of our highway infrastructure.