Taxpayers to Congress: Don’t Raise the Gas Tax!

ATR sends letter to Congress outlining opposition to raising federal gas tax and offers solutions to fix the problem.

WASHINGTON – Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the nations leading taxpayer advocacy group, sent a letter to Congressional leaders to reiterate the taxpayers\’ opposition to any increase in the federal motor fuels excise tax, or gas tax.

" The federal motor fuels excise tax is indeed a tax, and raising this tax by 5.4 cents and indexing it to inflation represents a tax increase ," said Grover Norquist, President of ATR. "Any effort to increase the tax burden of the American driver to fund the growing transportation bureaucracy should be blocked."

According to the Federal Highway Administration, the current federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, and state gas taxes average just over 22 cents. Based on this, American taxpayers are currently paying more than $50 billion annually in taxes on gasoline. This means that the average family\’s annual gas tax burden is $660, and every penny increase in the gas tax raises that family\’s annual tax bill by $25.

If the current proposal to increase the gas tax by 5.4 cents is enacted, families could see their yearly tax burden increase by $135. This would represent a total gas tax of almost $800 annually. In addition, the decision to index the tax to inflation creates an automatic tax increase that these families will be forced to pay every year.

Also outlined in the letter were several ways to meet the current financial demand to repair federal highways and to build new needed federal roads. These ideas include, stopping the application of federal prevailing wage standards and repealing outdated federal prohibitions that do not permit expansion on congested interstate corridors to be paid for by user-fees.

" The gasoline tax is currently not collected efficiently or effectively, and is used to fund several projects outside of the responsibility of the federal government ," said Norquist. "Instead of increasing the federal gas tax, Congress should look at new ways of paying for roads and more efficient highway construction methods."