21st Century Wire says…
There are countless gas and fuel tax regimes currently being run all over the US. Most of them are scams designed to rinse the pockets of working and middle class. Here are two examples…
In Washington DC (see article below), city book-cookers tried to hoodwink the public and businesses with a fraudulent back door tax on fuel.
They claim that this tax scam was simply a “mistake”. What would have happened if they were not caught in the act?
Here’s another example, currently happening in the state of Massachusetts right now. State money-grubbers and glad-handers are trying to pass a law that triggers an automatic tax increase on fuel linked to the CPI inflation index. This will be the nation’s first Automated Tax. If it works in Mass, then it will be held up by governments as the template for all taxes.
From Tank the Gas Tax:
“Do you know that there is going to be an automatic annual increase in the gas tax? How can that be?
This summer the legislature passed into law a linking of the gas tax to the Consumer Price Index! That means as inflation rises so does the Massachusetts gas tax. It is the gas tax to infinity and beyond.
Worse yet, it is taxation without representation. Legislators never have to vote again to raise our taxes, but our taxes will go up! What if the CPI goes down? You will still be paying 24 cents per gallon! The legislature capped the minimum you will pay, but they did not cap the maximum we will all pay at the pump.
This tax increase is directly aimed at the working poor and middle class. It will not only increase the cost of commuting to work, but it will also hike up the costs of food and clothing. Remember, 24 cents is just the state’s gas tax. It doesn’t include the federal gas tax.
How do we end this taxation without representation?”
D.C. charged wrong gas tax, counting on gas station owners to make refunds to motorists
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Aaron Davis
Washington Post
The D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue acknowledged Monday that it erred last month in ordering gasoline wholesalers to begin implementing a new wholesale price of gasoline to replace the current per-gallon tax on Oct. 1, overcharging them as much as $95,000 during the first week of the month because of a calculation mistake.
In instructions issued to the wholesalers, the tax office said that they should refund the amount overcharged to service stations and ask the service stations to refund it to motorists. Typically, wholesalers pass on the cost of taxes to retailers, who in turn pass it on to consumers.
But Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said he would be surprised if motorists ended up getting back any of the money they were overcharged in taxes. “I don’t see that happening,” Anderson said. “This sounds like a $95,000 windfall for the service stations. I don’t expect that motorists are ever going to see that money back.”
The mistake occurred as the District transitioned from a 23.5-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax to an 8 percent tax on the wholesale price of gasoline. The change was pushed by D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who argued that the new formula — also recently adopted by Maryland and Virginia — would slow the loss of gas-tax revenue as cars become more fuel-efficient.
The change was supposed to be “revenue neutral,” meaning it wouldn’t immediately increase the 23.5-cent-per-gallon tax.
But instead of calculating the new 8 percent tax on the wholesale price of gasoline, the Office of Tax and Revenue mistakenly calculated it on the retail price of gas, which included the existing District tax as well as federal taxes. Because of that error, wholesalers were charged a tax of 28.8 cents per gallon, a 23 percent increase over the intended rate.
“It was a mistake,” said Stephen M. Cordi, deputy chief financial officer for the Office of Tax and Revenue. “Somebody moved too quickly . . . what should have happened, had we used the right index, it would have been no change.”
Asked if anyone on his staff had been disciplined for the error, Cordi said the mistake was under review.
Cordi was reluctant to say that motorists had ended up paying too much…
READ MORE ENERGY NEWS AT: 21st Century Energy Files
