State Senator Gathers Signatures To Limit Gasoline Taxes (Video)
Republican Senator Len Suzio brought his petition drive to Cheshire Thursday in his effort to cap the state's gas tax.
Videos
Pushing $4 a gallon, Connecticut's gas prices are among the highest in the country, surpassing even California.
On Thursday, dozens of shoppers at Everybody's Market stopped to sign State Sen. Len Suzio's petition to limit the amount of tax the state can levy on gasoline.
Suzio, (R-Meriden) said gas is taxed in two ways in Connecticut: one is a 25 cent per gallon tax paid directly by the consumer, and the other is a 7 percent levy on the cost of wholesale fuel, which eventually is passed on to the customer, too.
Suzio said the additional tax, called the gross receipt tax, is a "double whammy" on the motoring public.
While gas prices in Connecticut are the second highest in the nation, the taxes collected per gallon of gas are not. An explanation of gas taxes collected by GasBuddy.com can be seen here.
"There's never an end," said Sonia Chan of Cheshire. "If we do not become responsible for out debt, there will be no end to raising taxes."
Debbie Marcuzzi of Cheshire signed the petition and points to the dependance on cars and gasoline.
"We can't walk to our homes, to our children's schools, we rely on our motor vehicles," she said.
A report on CT News Junkie contains a response to Suzio's effort Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven,
“One of the reasons is that we don’t have tolls in Connecticut,” Looney recently told CT News Junkie. “Now it’s very easy to do what Sen. Suzio is doing here and propose a reduction in the gross receipt tax without proposing a replacement for the revenue at a time when we desperately need the revenue.
Looney said there is no way to ensure that a capped tax would reduce the cost of gas. He said in the online report that wholesalers would simply pass the their costs down to consumers at the gas pump.
Looney cited an incident earlier this month when federal taxes expired on airlines. All but a few carriers actually raised their fares to account for the tax reduction, CT News Junkie reported, and left passengers paying the same amount for tickets while the airlines kept the additional money.
“There’s no way to ensure [gas wholesalers] won’t just pocket the money,” Looney told the online media outlet.
Len Suzio
6:22 pm on Sunday, August 14, 2011
Connecticut receives millions of federal dollars each year for its interstate highways. The federal grants do not allow tolls on those roads without a special exemption. Thus, tolls on the roads aren't possible in Connecticut without loss of large federal dollars and Senator Looney should know that.
Both Massachusetts and Rhode Island have significantly lower gas taxes than Connecticut and their gas prices reflect the lower taxes in those states. In other words, the gas stations passed on the benefit of lower taxes to consumers and Senator Looney should know that too. The experience in our neighbor states contradicts Senator Looney's objections.
Finally, the adopted state budget was based on a gross receipts tax below $3/gallon. This means that the taxes on gas collected when gas prices exceed $3 per gallon are a windfall tax for Connecticut's tax man. Far from jeopardizing Connecticut's "balanced" budget, this hidden tax on gas is in addition to the record tax increase approved by Governor Malloy and the Democratic controlled legislature. To allow this tax to increase without limit is simply greed on the part of politicians who never seem to reach a limit on taxing Connecticut taxpayers. Moreover, this tax is extremely regressive and takes a greater percent of the incomes of the poor and the middle class. Where's the pity in that?
The appetite for more taxes in Connecticut is insatiable. Either protest or roll over and play dead.