Michigan in January 2013 had the SIXTH highest overall gasoline taxes in the nation, and Gov. Snyder is talking about raising them higher still to fix the roads. He is quite clearly nuts.
The excise tax on gasoline is already double the rate you would pay in sales tax on a box of Kleenex or a roll of toilet paper and is one of the most regressive taxes in the state and in the country. The excise tax on gasoline penalizes the working poor the most who depend on their cars to get to their crummy jobs, if they are lucky enough to have one. And Governor Snyder only wants to make it worse.
Here are the top six states for combined federal, state, and local gasoline taxes as of January 2013:
New York: 69.0 cents per gallon
California: 67.1 cents
Hawaii: 65.5 cents
Connecticut: 63.4 cents
Illinois: 57.5 cents
Michigan: 57.1 cents.
The federal portion EVERYWHERE is fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon, so that means Michigan already takes 38.7 cents out of your pocket every time you put a gallon of gas in your car.
Today's average price for gasoline in Michigan is $3.743, meaning the base price at the pump is $3.172, including all profits and costs before the taxes are applied. That means the federal tax of 18.4 cents represents a federal excise tax on gas of 5.8%, and that your Michigan excise tax on gasoline is a whopping 12.2%, more than twice the sales tax rate of 6%. The average sales tax nationwide is just 5.04%.
Michigan is one state which bears the full brunt of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, resulting in road workers getting top dollar. Funny how we have some of the worst roads in the country in exchange for that. Maybe the governor should spend more time trying to figure that out before picking the taxpayers pockets again.
If the country needs anything, it is a tax cut on gasoline. The national average tax is 48.8 cents a gallon. Backing out the federal portion, that means the states on average are taking 9.3% on gasoline, a tax rate 85% higher than the average state sales tax rate.
