this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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Gas tax is pretty much nothing in the US... the minimum gas tax is about 3x higher in Europe (and it's usually much higher). The amount that people from areas prone to having high rates of driving (suburbs for example) pay in taxes is highly disproportionate to the amount car infrastructure costs.
Plus using things like toll roads means you can reduce the car infrastructure tax everyone pays a lot, currently if you're not a driver or don't drive that much you generally pay the same amount (or maybe slightly less with tax credits if you're eligible) as someone that drives constantly. Which is pretty terrible – using cars as the primary mode of transport is just bad for society, and it should be looked to reduce it as much as possible. My taxes shouldn't be going to funding unnecessary car deaths or mass pollution etc. etc., and cars are one of the largest causes of pollution on the planet.
Gas tax doesn't do much in that regard, sure it's a minor environment tax but those who don't drive are still subsidizing the people who do. Ideally it should be the other way around – people who drive who don't need to drive should be subsidizing those who don't drive.
Average gas tax in the U.S. is 52 cents per gallon. Average consumption is 370 million gallons a day. That's not an insignificant amount of money.
Sure, it seems like a lot, but here's a quick read to explain why it's not:
https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/
Gas taxes generate only about $50 billion of revenue, when car infrastructure spending is in the hundreds of billions per year. At this point I pay more in regular taxes than someone who drives regularly pays in gas tax. Plus the gas tax is out of the picture when we consider EVs – which still have a majority of problems gas vehicles do, and cost individuals who don't drive a ton of money still, minus the constant pollution.
In the Netherlands about 9% of the total price is actually profit.
If the price for gas is €0.80 per liter, we pay €2.017 per liter. There's this calculation with it:
€ 0.8 + € 0.867 = € 1.667 without tax € 1.667 x 21% = € 0.350 tax € 1.667 + € 0.350 = € 2,017
The € 0.867 is standard Consumer tax per liter on gasoline.
This is only the tax on gas, let's not talk about the tax you pay for your vehicle every month. I don't like it, but it beats being eternally in debt for breaking your finger. Or destroying my car in a pothole.