Gavin Newsom (Gov. Hairgel) has stepped in it again. This time, he made a claim about California gas taxes that’s really easy to check. In fact, I knew it was false the moment I heard it. This is Newsom’s latest whopper, gas taxes edition Watch this:
For you folks who didn’t bother to watch my lovely video production, here’s the key frame:
Here’s the reality. California’s excise tax on gasoline automatically adjusts for inflation on July 1 every year. This year’s adjustment was +$0.01 per gallon. Not a lot, but not zero either:
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Newsom’s video was released well after July 1. Honestly, this isn’t even a good attempt at deception. If California’s overwhelmingly Democrat majority and its lapdog newspapers cover this, it will be buried deep in the Sunday edition. (I’ll grant an exception to the Orange County Register.)
But What About the Tax Burden?
Economists, don’t get all excited. I’m just talking about the categories of the various taxes on gasoline in California. Here’s the summary.
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I pulled this data together from a variety of sources. The Excel workbook includes a source for each line-item. If you read this and are more familiar with the market than me, drop me an e-mail and tell me what I got wrong.
The key item on this list regarding Newsom’s allegations is state taxes compared to federal. California gas taxes are $1.5201 per gallon. The federal tax is $0.4500, about 30% of California’s.
Much of this data comes from the California Energy Commission (CEC). Again, links to specific items in the table above are in the Excel workbook.
More Details
The excise tax ($0.5960) is the biggest part of California’s gas taxes. Second place goes to “state environmental programs” ($0.4996). If you want to know more about that, click here to download a very large Excel workbook. But I promise it’s easier to use my workbook because I’ve extracted the data for 9/9/24 (MyData Cal Energy Commission tab).[1] Columns A-D are from CEC. From E onward is my calculations. CEC separates branded from unbranded gas sales. For this week, the average retail price is identical for the two segments. That means the taxes are also identical.[2]
I also must note the federal Climate Commitment Act (CCA) tax of $0.27. The figure is from the Tax Foundation. I don’t have the time to investigate this but I trust the source. Again, if you know more about the CCA, please contact me.
Conclusion
I suppose I should thank Gov. Hairgel for putting together such a concise piece of fiction. It’s kept me busy for about a week. Not full-time work, I assure you. I hope you learned something.
- The data is weekly and the full table starts January 4, 1999. The worksheet contains 24,103 rows. Use my workbook. ↑
- Naturally, I only noticed this after I had finished crunching the numbers for each market. You can see the results of my wasted time on the worksheet mentioned a few lines above this. ↑
