By Rep. Paul Anderson
Minnesota House Research has produced a fact sheet comparing the taxes that each of the 50 states levy on gasoline. We rank 16th among the states in terms of the gas tax collected in Minnesota and 20th when other states’ local excise and sales taxes are included. Our gas tax is 28.5 cents per gallon with another 2.1 cents collected for clean-up and inspection fees.
The state with the highest tax on gasoline is Illinois, where a total of 65.7 cents in state and local taxes is collected on each gallon. That breaks down to 42.9 cents on the state level and 22.8 cents locally. New York ranks second in gas tax collections with 41.9 cents on the state level and 18.9 cents locally for a total of 60.9. California is close behind with a state and local tax rate of 60.3 cents, followed by Hawaii at 56.7 cents and Connecticut at 49.3 cents.
At the other end of the scale, the states with the lowest gas taxes are New Jersey with total state and local collections of 14.5 cents, Virginia at 11.7 cents, and Alaska with just 8 cents on each gallon of gas.
The gas tax rates in our neighboring states are 23 cents in North Dakota, 24 cents in South Dakota, 32.9 cents in Wisconsin, and 22 cents in Iowa. In each of these states, there are no additional local taxes on gasoline.
Some states, including Minnesota, use a “blink-on” method of collecting revenue for underground tank clean-ups and inspections. The tax is imposed whenever a specified fund reaches a certain level and blinks off when the fund gets large enough again. In those states with local excise or sales taxes, the amount of tax in the largest city was used to compile information for this study.
***
Attended an interesting meeting this past Sunday evening with a group of farmers and grain buyers from Slovakia and Hungary. They were in this country to get a first-hand look at our agricultural system and to meet with officials of our grain organizations. Communication, for the most part, was a bit difficult as we had to go through an interpreter when visiting. Each gave a brief description of their involvement in farming back home, with many of them working with what they called a cooperative. From their descriptions, these appear to be large farming operations and are the remnants of what used to be known under Communism as collective farms. Several of them talked about farming many thousand “hectares.” (A hectare is equal to approximately 2.2 acres.)
I visited with one member of the group from Hungary who could speak English. When the topic of importing soybeans came up, I asked about the European Union’s ban on GMO products. He said it was an important topic for Europeans and will probably remain so. In fact, he said the Hungarian constitution contains an article that bans GMOs from being grown in the country. However, it is NOT illegal to import them into Hungary. That seems like a head-scratcher to me as their farmers are not allowed to grow genetically modified crops, but those same crops are allowed to be brought into the country.
-30-