Ever wonder what goes into making the price of gas so high? O.K., other than pure unadulterated greed.
Petroleum companies make $20,000 profit off a barrel of oil - not including the 'waste by-product' gasoline - so the cost of a barrel of oil isn't the reason no matter how the petroleum companies and the handmaidens ... our government and media ... try and sell us on it.
Come on folks they make at least 20K per barrel and they are bemoaning and lamenting the price of a barrel going to $100.00 ... seems to me that, that crumpet will have to wait until the price per barrel drops while they are having that three martini lunch seeing as how they can't afford the price of that pastry for dessert!
But on to the 'reason' for this post: User Tax.
Do you know what that is? Did you know each state (as well as the feds) tack on a user tax per gallon of gas you buy? Each state uses the 'monies' differently (most use it on road building projects with a pittance toward maintaining those roads), so where does you state fall on the tax scale?
The highest is New York @ 60.8 cents on the gallon and Alaska is the lowest @ 26.4 cents on the gallon. North Carolina @ 48.6 cents sits right in the middle while @ 35.2 cents South Carolina sits among the lower taxed states.
But user taxes aren't the only reason because the highest gas prices are in California where the user tax is among the high taxed states it is not the highest taxed state, so what gives in California?
As to the federal user tax, if I am not mistaken it is in the neighborhood of 10 cents a gallon. So factor in that along with the state user taxes and some locality user taxes (on average 2 cents per gallon) the highest amount is New York's 70.8 cents per gallon.
What is gas in New York 3.50US a gallon? That leaves $2.80 in the price of gas at the pump where on average 50 cent goes to the location (the actual gas station) leaving $2.30 for the petroleum company ... whose cost to manufacture is zero - remember gas is a waste by-product - so if we allow the very generous amount of 30 cents per gallon for storage, transportation, advertising and political lobbying that leaves the petroleum company with a pure profit of $2.00 per gallon.
Petroleum companies produce 1,000,000 gallons of gas per day ... you do the math.
