Did you know that the gas tax in Pennsylvania is the second-highest in the nation?
And that’s true for both unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel.
The painful truth is that a little more than one-fifth of your bill at the pump in Pennsylvania goes straight to the government.
Pennsylvania Gas Tax 2020
When you pull up at a gas station in Pennsylvania to fill up, you are paying a whopping 58.7 cents in taxes per gallon. This is the second-highest rate in the country and the highest when it comes to state taxes as a percentage of the gas price at 21.7%. If you happen to fill up with diesel, you are also going to pay the second-highest rate at 75.2 cents per gallon.
When you add another 18.4 cents in federal tax for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel, you are paying 77.1 cents and 99.6 cents respectively just in taxes for every gallon.
By the way, this high rate is the result of Act 89, which was signed by Governor Tom Corbett in 2013.
What Does the Pennsylvania Gas Tax Fund?
With such a high tax rate on gas, what are Pennsylvanians getting for it? In most states, the gas tax is earmarked to maintain the interstate highway systems as well as bridges. Pennsylvania has more than 1,300 miles of interstate highways as well as more than 25,000 state-owned bridges, the third-largest in the nation.
Keep these infrastructures requires a lot of money, but not all the money from the gas tax goes to PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation). Money from Act 89 also goes into the Motor License Fund for the Pennsylvania State Police and its highway patrol operations.
As for PennDOT, it gets 74% of its funding from gas taxes. It gets the rest from Driver and Vehicle Service Fees (17%) and the remainder 9% from the general sale of bonds, sources of interest, and general tax revenue.
| Gasoline tax | Diesel tax | |
|---|---|---|
| California | $ 0.6120 | $ 0.8693 |
| Pennsylvania | $ 0.5870 | $ 0.7520 |
| Illinois | $ 0.5498 | $ 0.6108 |
| Washington | $ 0.4940 | $ 0.4940 |
| Hawaii | $ 0.4825 | $ 0.5030 |
| Indiana | $ 0.4662 | $ 0.5000 |
| New York | $ 0.4596 | $ 0.4527 |
| Connecticut | $ 0.4211 | $ 0.4650 |
| Florida | $ 0.4199 | $ 0.3497 |
| New Jersey | $ 0.4140 | $ 0.4850 |
| Ohio | $ 0.3851 | $ 0.4701 |
| Oregon | $ 0.3682 | $ 0.3605 |
| Maryland | $ 0.3670 | $ 0.3745 |
| North Carolina | $ 0.3645 | $ 0.3645 |
| West Virginia | $ 0.3570 | $ 0.3570 |
| Georgia | $ 0.3515 | $ 0.3933 |
| Rhode Island | $ 0.3500 | $ 0.3500 |
| Nevada | $ 0.3378 | $ 0.2856 |
| Idaho | $ 0.3300 | $ 0.3300 |
| Wisconsin | $ 0.3290 | $ 0.3290 |
| Montana | $ 0.3275 | $ 0.3020 |
| Iowa | $ 0.3250 | $ 0.3250 |
| Vermont | $ 0.3101 | $ 0.3200 |
| Nebraska | $ 0.3060 | $ 0.3000 |
| Maine | $ 0.3001 | $ 0.3121 |
| Utah | $ 0.3001 | $ 0.3001 |
| South Dakota | $ 0.3000 | $ 0.3000 |
| Minnesota | $ 0.2860 | $ 0.2860 |
| Tennessee | $ 0.2740 | $ 0.2840 |
| Massachusetts | $ 0.2654 | $ 0.2654 |
| Kentucky | $ 0.2600 | $ 0.2300 |
| Michigan | $ 0.2590 | $ 0.2630 |
| Kansas | $ 0.2403 | $ 0.2603 |
| Wyoming | $ 0.2400 | $ 0.2400 |
| New Hampshire | $ 0.2383 | $ 0.2383 |
| District of Columbia | $ 0.2350 | $ 0.2350 |
| Delaware | $ 0.2300 | $ 0.2200 |
| North Dakota | $ 0.2300 | $ 0.2300 |
| South Carolina | $ 0.2275 | $ 0.2275 |
| Colorado | $ 0.2200 | $ 0.2050 |
| Virginia | $ 0.2195 | $ 0.2602 |
| Arkansas | $ 0.2180 | $ 0.2280 |
| Alabama | $ 0.2121 | $ 0.2215 |
| Louisiana | $ 0.2001 | $ 0.2001 |
| Oklahoma | $ 0.2000 | $ 0.2000 |
| Texas | $ 0.2000 | $ 0.2000 |
| Arizona | $ 0.1900 | $ 0.2700 |
| New Mexico | $ 0.1888 | $ 0.2288 |
| Mississippi | $ 0.1879 | $ 0.1840 |
| Missouri | $ 0.1742 | $ 0.1742 |
| Alaska | $ 0.1466 | $ 0.1440 |
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