Gasoline taxes in January 2013 are averaging $.488 per gallon nationally. That's up slightly, about 1.5%, from January 2011 when taxes averaged $.481 per gallon nationally.
The average gallon in the last five observations of spot prices of refined product ready for shipment has an actual cost $2.614. This yields an average expected price nationally of $3.102, whereas today's current national average is $3.267, meaning the local gas station's profit per gallon cannot be any more than about $.165 per gallon because he pays out of that a mark-up to the supplier for his profit and delivery costs.
Whatever else may be said about how much profit is buried in the spot price accruing to the oil companies and the refiners, the distributors and retailers are fighting for profits from just 5% of the cost of a gallon, whereas government from top to bottom takes a 15% cut, for doing absolutely nothing.
And the roads in this country still suck.
The federal cut alone is 5.6% of the cost of gasoline today, $.184 per gallon everywhere, but the states' cut is a whopping 9.3% on average. Compare that to the current average of state sales tax rates nationwide, which is just 5.04%. On average everyone who fills up at the gas station is paying 85% more in taxes to state government for that product than would be paid on toilet paper.
That doesn't make any sense!
