The report also noted that Americans pay the least in motor fuel tax. The average U.S. Motor Fuel Tax (average state and federal tax) is $0.40 for gasoline, and $0.46 diesel. In comparison, foreign tax rates are considerably higher (i.e. Japan in August 2012 was $3.21 and Italy was $4.90), according to the report. This might give more ammunition to increase the gas tax to fund the next highway bill. Like everyone else, I don’t want to pay more at the pump. However, the gas tax has not been increased in several years and each 1-cent increase in the federal gas tax generates about $1.8 billion in revenue, according to Joseph Giglio, a professor at Northeastern University who has written extensively about transportation financing, in a USA Today report. (And the gas tax alone is not enough to fund what we need in a highway bill.)
Highlights of the report also include the following:
- August gasoline/gasohol reported 11,955,661,580 gallons of use.
- August Diesel reported 3,280,232,424.
- Cumulative total for gasoline January 2012 to August 2012 was 91,127,207,427.
