Does Californias Gas Tax Go Up Again in July

With a mensurate to repeal California's recently enacted gas taxes and registration fees heading to the November ballot, many drivers want to know, only where does all that coin really go?

"It's extremely complicated," said Asha Agrawal, the managing director of the National Transportation Finance Center at San Jose's Mineta Transportation Institute. Information technology's also a large campaign issue, with tax opponents arguing that politicians can't be trusted to spend these new dollars on the road and rail improvements they're promising.

We'll try to break it down for you.

Q: How much am I paying to fund highways, bridges, roads and public transit in the land?

A: The Legislative Analysts' Office, which provides nonpartisan financial and policy advice, estimates drivers pay, on average, $750 per year in transportation taxes and fees at the state and federal level. This includes the taxes targeted for repeal — the 12-cent tax increase on a gallon of gas, the 20 cents added to a gallon of diesel and the new registration fees. It doesn't include the i-cent or half-cent transportation sales taxes that residents in Alameda or Santa Clara counties, for example, pay to fund local improvements. Nor does it include money for special districts, such as the holding taxes in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties that assistance pay for BART.

Q: Where do those taxes and fees get?

A: In the proposed land budget for the current financial twelvemonth, which begins July 1, gas and diesel taxes, as well as the weight fees truck drivers pay and registration and license fees, are expected to drum up simply over $16 billion. Nearly 59 percent of those funds get to highway maintenance, road repairs and public transit, co-ordinate to the Section of Finance. Slightly more than 22 percent pays for the DMV, CHP and other state agencies in charge of regulating and enforcing traffic laws.

A minor portion, just under 3 per centum, helps the state pay the administrative costs of collecting, distributing and auditing the gas taxes and fees. An even smaller portion helps reduce the negative impacts of vehicle emissions on the environment, fund research and workforce development related to transportation, and pay for bicycle and pedestrian amenities.

Roughly 7.5 percent pays off transportation-related debt.

And, and so in that location are two types of taxes or fees, representing about vii.5 percentage of the full, that the state and the DMV collect from motorists that don't fund transportation services directly.

A portion of those funds is redistributed to local police enforcement agencies and another portion is split between the state'due south general fund and the departments of Food and Agriculture and Parks and Recreation.

Q: How can I be sure that coin from the gas revenue enhancement and fees is protected?

A:The short respond is that gas and diesel taxes have historically been restricted nether the state constitution to fund transportation services since nigh their inception. Simply, the legislature has been allowed to infringe from those funds from time to fourth dimension, equally long as the money was repaid, said Michael Coleman, a fiscal policy adviser to the League of California Cities.

Over the years, and peculiarly when the land was facing a financial crisis, the legislature did just that. And voters responded past approving at least a half-dozen measures to ensure fuel taxes were used only for transportation, including the passage of Prop 69 earlier this month. The measure restricts money raised from SB1, the new gas taxes and fees, for transportation-related purposes only, with few exceptions.

The event is that it'south now much more difficult to divert transportation revenues, said Agrawal. As an expert on transportation financing in the state, Agrawal said she hasn't seen evidence that large sums of coin are beingness redirected to the general fund at the expense of highway maintenance, road repairs and public transit upgrades.

"It's a user-friendly ruddy herring for people who, for whatever reason, don't want to see the taxation rates get up," she said.

The real problem?

"The gas taxation is not a percentage of anything. The gas tax, because it was set as a per-gallon tax, requires a very visible vote," she said. "And, it'southward pitifully behind what it would be, if it had been raised regularly."

Q: What would the gas tax exist at present if information technology had been raised regularly with inflation?

California'due south gas revenue enhancement was offset implemented in 1923 at two cents per gallon. According to the U.S. Section of Labor's consumer price index figurer, when adjusted for inflation, that two-cent per-gallon tax would exist 30 cents now.

The concluding time the gas tax was increased was 1994, when it reached xviii cents per gallon. SB1 increased the revenue enhancement by another 12 cents, bringing the state'due south revenue enhancement on gasoline to xxx cents per gallon.

Other sources: Martin Wachs, Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning, UCLA; Paul Golaszewski, Legislative Analyst's Office; Mark Monroe and Steve Wells with the California Department of Finance; Melissa Figueroa, spokeswoman for CalSTA; Matt Rocco, spokesman for the Caltrans.

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Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/01/gas-tax-where-does-the-money-actually-go/