I was teaching in Nashville again this week. The price of gasoline there is at least a dime per gallon cheaper than what we pay here in Florida. I drove up to see my mom in Indiana, and gasoline there is a nickel less than what I paid in Tennessee hours earlier. What's the deal?
The U.S. Department of Energy says, on average, about 13 percent of the price we pay at the pump goes toward taxes.
See this chart [PDF] as an example of how prices differ nationally.
Read this other chart to see how much states charge in gasoline taxes.
Or you
can click on this interactive map to compare your state with states that border yours. You may find that gas stations sitting on borders get hammered by the gas stations siting a couple of miles away across the border.
In Tennessee, for example, most of the population lives on or near a border (Memphis, Chattanooga, Tri-Cities and Nashville are only an hour from a border, so some suburbs are even closer to Kentucky.) In some states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, the gas tax is more than 30 cents. Some cities like Chicago add a local option gasoline tax.
So where does all of that tax money go? My friend
Rick Kupchella took
a look.
