McGentrix wrote:A better idea would be to put a tax cap per gallon of gas instead of a percentage. I am sure they could figure out an appropriate amount and cap the amount that the fed and state govts can charge.
Oil prices go up with demand, nothing can be done about that, but the government can regulate the amount of taxes added per gallon.
The federal gas tax is per gallon, not a percentage (right now it's 18.4 cents/gallon). All states also have a per gallon tax on gasoline. Those taxes don't go up when the price of gas goes up (although in Nebraska, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, the gas tax is indexed for inflation).
In addition to per gallon excise taxes, most states charge sales tax on gas purchases, and that tax is on a percentage basis, not on a per gallon basis (those sales taxes are figured on the base price of gasoline, before the federal and state excise taxes are added). The combination of the federal and state excise taxes and the state sales tax gives an "effective tax" for each gallon.
(calculated as of 8/2005)