Friday, November 12, 2010
Double tax amount on gasoline
A committee organized to bring in the US debt has made a proposal to increase the tax on a gallon of gas by nearly double. Currently, regular gasoline tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. The tax would add 15 cents more to each of those. It seems like an awful idea for consumers, but does have some merit I think. It would bring in extra revenue, decrease unnecessary driving more, and increase incentives to innovate new ways of transportation, and/or new ways to bring in revenue for the government.
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5 comments:
This article does not specify how much money the government will save from collecting extra taxes on gasoline. I think the government should stop creating extra taxes because the people are losing their faith as the speculation of higher taxes are bad is still widespread. However,as for myself, I would happily pay the increased gas tax. As vehicles become more fuel efficient, we buy less gas and pay lower taxes, but it costs the same to keep the roads repaired. In order to keep the tax rate the same on a per-mile basis, we should pay more per-gallon. Simple arithmetic.
This is good and it will make people cut down on driving. The Environment is a touchy subject right now with all of the problems arising. Anything that will help decrease the emissions is a good thing, in my opinion. The government is creating extra taxes though, and people are going to get overwhelmed if they keep raising them and creating new ones.
I agree with JP. The tax would give many people incentives to find other ways of transportation. However this tax seems rather steep since we would be doubling it and there will possibly be hidden problems that may arise do to this which may hurt the economy. It will be interesting to see what happens later on if they do decide to increase the tax on gasonline.
The increased tax will increase government revenue, decreasing the deficit and will also provide an incentive for consumers to find other modes of transportation. But, this tax only hurts consumers - the price of gasoline will be higher than it already is and low-income families will be affected the most. Also, this tax doesn't provide much of an incentive for large oil giants to research alternative fuels - they have an incentive for research when consumption of oil decreases.
I agree with Ben that consumers, and especially low-income families, would be hurt. A gas tax is highly regressive because the people it hurts the most are the ones who don't have any other choice but to drive to get to their jobs.
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