County gas tax highest allowed in state

County drivers are paying 36.92 cents per gallon in state, local taxes, and 18.4 cents in federal fees.

Federal income tax day was Tuesday, but there’s a tax motorists pay every day — the gasoline sales tax. It’s part of the price of every gallon of gasoline. Most of it is designated for transportation-related costs such as new roads and road improvements.

Across America, the gas tax amounts to $198 million per day, or $72 billion a year. That’s $297 a year per driver, and in Florida, an average of $331, GasBuddy said Tuesday.

That’s not as bad as Pennsylvania, where the average per driver pays $466 per year because gas taxes are the country’s highest — at almost 78 cents per gallon. The national average is 50 cents per gallon, and Alaska has the lowest gas taxes at 31 cents a gallon, GasBuddy said.

Since the taxes are charged per gallon, the taxes do not change as the price of gas goes up and down.

In Palm Beach County, the federal tax of 18.4 cents and the state and local taxes of 36.92 cents per gallon combined total 55.32 cents per gallon, the maximum allowed in Florida.

Palm Beach Count y and 25 other Florida counties out of the state’s 67 counties have imposed the highest local gas taxes allowed, 12 cents per gallon. That’s because they collec t what’s c alled the ninth cent tax as well as an additional local option tax that not all counties charge, according to the Florida Department of Revenue.

In Palm Beach County, in the fiscal year 2016-17, motorists purchased more than 376 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel. Statewide fuel purchases amounted to more than 6.2 bil- lion gallons.

The 18.4 cents federal tax goes p r i mari ly t o f u n d ro a d s a n d bridges, with 2.86 cents going to pay for mass transit, and onetenth of a cent for repair and cleanup of leaking underground storage tanks, according to FDOT. There’s also a federal diesel fuel added tax of 6 cents a gallon.

T h e f e d e r a l g a s t a x , f i r s t imposed in 1932 at a rate of 1 cent a gallon, has been the same since 1993. There’s been talk of raising or reforming it, as it hasn’t kept up with inflation, the increase i n f uel- ef f i c i ent vehicl e s and ride-hailing.

The state fuel sales tax (13.4 cents) is designated for public transportation and any legitimate state transportation purpose. The State Comprehensive Enhanced Transportation System tax (7.4 cents) must be spent in the district where it’s generated.

Of the state tax, 4 cents is distributed to local governments where it is to be used for acquisition, construction and mainte- nance of roads and other legitimate county and municipal transportation purposes.

The state portion of the motor fuel tax rate is indexed to the general rate of inflation using the Consumer Price Index every January, FDOT says. This January the rate hike amounted to one tenth of one cent.

The st ate highway fuel t a x started in 1921 at 1 cent a gallon.

Since 1972, counties have been permitted to impose additional fuel taxes of their own and receive the proceeds.

Local taxes include municipal (1 cent), county (1 cent), ninth cent (1 cent), constitutional (2 cents), local option (1-5 cents) additional local option (1-6 cents).

In Florida during the next 10 years the transfer from transportation revenues to nontransportation purposes is expected to average about $321 million annually, according to FDOT.