I believe as part of Gov. "my hair is perfect" McDonnell's transportation funding plan. The state tax on gas was to go down 11 cents on July 1 and the sales tax go up a tad. I didn't notice any significant drop on gas prices and now the oil market is being manipulated again and seeing big run up in crude oil price.


Thanks Bobby you didn't figure the gasoline companies would go for profits?

Reducing the actual price was never the goal. What's good for big oil is good for big oil, and right now, that's Virginia.

And raising sales tax in its place transfers more of the burden to the poor.

Duplicate thread, BTW.

I didn't notice any significant drop on gas prices

Then you're nuts. Paid $3.84 for premium over the weekend in Fairfax, down from the previous week.

The Va gax tax went from 17.5 cents per gallon to 0 but there is now a 3.5% tax on the wholesale price of gas. So the dealer pays 3.5 cents/dollar on what they pay for gas and passes cost on to you. If the dealer pays $3.00/gallon wholesale, they pay 10.5 cents per gallon. At least 12 cents gets passed to you so you might save 5.5 cents per gallon on gas taxes now. When gas hits $5/gal, the dealer will be paying maybe $4.60/gal or 16.1 cents/gal in gas taxes. He'll pass on an 18 cent/gallon cost so the cost of the tax will then be higher for you. If the price of gas goes up then higher costs to you due to the new gas tax.

yeah, people don't understand that the tax "cut" is very temporary. when gas prices go up, the wholesale tax will surpass the prior flat rate.

so it's actually a tax hike in disguise.

Bear in mind that the gas station owners still have to sell the gas they bought, or contracted for, under the old gas tax. If they'd already purchased and paid for gas under the old system, they won't drop any prices until after they've sold all that gas.

Obviously, a station owner could very well just hold the line on prices even if the "new" gas might be cheaper and then pocket the difference. The reason why that's unlikely to happen is that in that scenario you'd always get one station owner who would undercut his competitors because he could. Then the others would be forced to cut their prices to compete.

What's truly funny is that the "moar tax" folks have spent the last year whining that gas taxes based on consumption volume weren't collecting enough $$$ and that the rate should be tied to price (a la sales taxes). Mcdumbass does that and it's "OMG TEH HATER"...

Meh.