Home  |  News  |  Features  |  Sports  |  Opinion  |  Events Calendar  |  Classifieds  |  Contact Us  |  RSS  |  e-Edition
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Dining  |  Entertainment  |  Golf  |  Health  |  Real Estate
Today's Weather
News
e-Edition
Local News
Local Features
Obituaries
Archives
Photo Galleries
Volcano Update
Special Reports
Events Calendar
Sports
Local Sports
Big Fish List
Golf Big Island
Opinion
Letters - Your Voice
Editorial
Columns
Submit Letter
Classifieds
Submit an Ad
Announcements
Automobiles
Employment
Instructions
Miscellaneous
Real Estate
Rentals
Services
Govt. Notices
Legal Center
West Hawaii Today
Advertise
Subscription Services
Newspapers in
Education
 Notice of Completion
Privacy Statements
Contact us
Employment
Entertainment
Health Guide
Real Estate Guide
Restaurant Guide
Online Partners
Big Island Weekly
Hawaii Tribune-
Herald
Hawaii.com
Las Vegas Review-Journal

advertisement


Stock Index
from archives > Local
Rate Story
Gas prices going up: Excise tax kicks in at midnight
by Jason Armstrong
Stephens Media

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 9:47 AM HST
HILO -- The state government is about to begin fueling higher gas prices.

Starting at midnight Tuesday, motorists can expect to pay at least another 12 cents per gallon -- plus any market-based increase -- on top of the $3.16 many Hilo dealers were charging Monday for a gallon of regular unleaded.

That's when ethanol-blended gasoline filling nearly every Hawaii pump will be subject to the same excise tax applied to other purchases.

advertisement
The gas had been exempted from excise tax under a two-year program aimed at promoting the use of renewable fuels. But a budget crisis prompted the Legislature's vote earlier this year to allow the ethanol excise tax credit to expire when the new fiscal year starts July 1.

Taxing gasoline will raise an estimated $40 million a year.

It also means Hawaii will once again have the nation's highest gas taxes, Gov. Linda Lingle has said in one published report.

The price for each gallon of gas already includes 18.4 cents in federal taxes, 17 cents in state taxes and 8.8 cents for Hawaii County taxes. While those taxes are fixed, the excise tax is a percentage of the total sale and rises as pump prices escalate.

Hawaii's excise tax is 4 percent, although businesses may charge customers up to 4.166 percent of the purchase amount. To help pay for its planned rail system, the City and County of Honolulu imposed a 4.5 percent excise tax, allowing Oahu merchants to pass on up 4.712 percent of the price of each sale.

But there's another gasoline-related tax that could have motorists fuming. The environmental response tax, set to also kick in at midnight Tuesday, will add a $1 surcharge, up from the current 5 cents, to every barrel of oil sold in Hawaii.

Lingle has concerns with the so-called barrel-tax legislation and is facing a deadline of Tuesday to take a position on it, said Russell Pang, her chief of media relations.

"So, we'll know (Tuesday) whether it's in the (veto) list or not," Pang said.

Higher oil prices would increase the cost of jet fuel, electricity and various business activities, he said.


Rate Story
Current Rating: 0 of 0 votes!Rate File:


Comments
You are now in the public comment zone: What follows is not our product; it is generated by other people, we do not vouch for it. By using this Web site you agree to accept our Rules of Engagement.

The comments section of West Hawaii Today is a self-policed community. West Hawaii Today staff does not monitor comments regularly. If you feel another user's post is in violation of the Rules of Engagement, please click the "Report Abuse" link beneath the user's post to report the violation. Reports will be monitored during regular business hours.

THE NEWSROOM STAFF DOES NOT POST COMMENTS OR RESPOND TO EXISTING COMMENTS ON THESE BLOGS.

Advertisement

There are 22 comment(s) comments to this story.

Satyagraha wrote on Jul 7, 2009 6:12 PM:

" Then again...
Newsweek headline today

"Are you Ready for $20 Per Gallon Gas?
Pump prices are off from last year's highs, but don't expect that to last."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/205629


/ it's obvious no one has a clue "

Report Abuse

deportthetroops wrote on Jul 6, 2009 9:22 PM:

" I don't pay gas taxes I have converted my car to a horse carriage and found 12 Republicans (I told them God ask them to do it!) to pull it. This is real green technology and thank you Republican Party for brainwashing this people - so they do everything which is wanted. "

Report Abuse

Satyagraha wrote on Jul 6, 2009 5:33 PM:

" Oil falls to $64, and drags the world's stocks down with it


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/World-stocks-oil-down-amid-apf-4133141821.html?x=0


/ we can't win "

Report Abuse

Satyagraha wrote on Jul 6, 2009 5:30 PM:

" Glut of oil could push gasoline prices back down below $2 a gallon Energy experts say oil supply is outstripping demand. Eventually suppliers will tire of paying to store all of the surplus oil and flood the market, they predict.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil4-2009jul04,0,311438.story "

Report Abuse

Satyagraha wrote on Jul 6, 2009 5:29 PM:

" "There is no supply-and-demand explanation for these hefty increases, according to many oil industry analysts," said AAA Auto Club spokesperson Jeffrey Spring. "Just as in 2008, commodities investors are pushing up crude oil and wholesale gasoline prices at a frenzied pace that seems to have no connection to domestic fuel consumption or availability."

According to AAA that monitors these things

http://in.sys-con.com/node/990640 "

Report Abuse

atayloragain wrote on Jul 6, 2009 12:50 PM:

" I'd like to buy a kukio nut farm. I wouldn't mind hiring workers. My point is that Hawaii CAN be self sufficient- even in the Western world. "

Report Abuse

DC2003 wrote on Jul 4, 2009 11:25 AM:

" Its kinda funny ... those blaming the Dems for the increase in ethanol use!

From the Federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 .....
"Increases the amount of biofuel (ethanol) that must be mixed with gasoline sold in the United States to 4 billion gallons by 2006, 6.1 billion gallons by 2009 and 7.5 billion gallons by 2012."

Now ... let me think .... who had control of the House, Senate and the White House then? "

Report Abuse

c15683 wrote on Jul 4, 2009 8:51 AM:

" Love your taxs?

Keep voting for democrat legistators. "

Report Abuse

ukulele wrote on Jul 3, 2009 12:54 PM:

" hawaii...Thank Linda Lingle she signed the bill. "

Report Abuse

ukulele wrote on Jul 3, 2009 12:52 PM:

" Somebody would have to pick the kukui nuts. That will never work because the people that need the most will walk the least and then complain about paying more then minimum wage to the real working people who would pick them.

Republicans are only interested in using a resource that is cheap and easy. When that runs out, they will blame everyone but themselves for no alternative fuels being available. "

Report Abuse

atayloragain wrote on Jul 3, 2009 7:41 AM:

" How many jobs would be created IN HAWAII FOR HAWAII if cars can be converted to run on Kukuio nut oil? "

Report Abuse

hawaii wrote on Jul 2, 2009 8:27 PM:

" And BJ's was 3.19.0 Wednesday afternoon and 3.34.9 this morning. What a racketeering ripoff. Thanks DEMS for forcing us to choose fuel over food, in the case of importing expensive ciorn ethanol. Where's the industry you hoped would begin in Hawaii to supply here instead of importing? Another brilliant (NOT) brain f a r t from the lolos in the big square building where they spent the first half of the year trying to pound a square peg into our round holes! "

Report Abuse

DTroxel wrote on Jul 1, 2009 7:39 PM:

" Bobster1985: Excellent. I was going to post exactly the same thing but see you beat me to it. It is the only way we can generate the revenue necessary to solve this energy situation. We will run out of oil this century. "

Report Abuse

atayloragain wrote on Jul 1, 2009 11:31 AM:

" I live in Cali now from Kona...food is cheap here - doctors/medicine is available here - regular gas is $2.97/gal. Milk $2.99/Gal. I say we contact our gov't to get Hawaii independent- have cattle slaughtered there - stay there - milk, same. Grow food, open fish farms. there's no reason why Hawaii should suffer like this. It's a gov't run greedy program of unnecessary imports. I'll lead the petition - let me know. I want to come home. "

Report Abuse

local12 wrote on Jul 1, 2009 10:04 AM:

" The solution to all of our problems is higher and higher taxes.

I know this is so because the govt told me so.

Think I'm wrong, just ask the happy people of Cuba. No income disparity in Cuba, or lack of free govt health care or evil capitalist corporations, etc, etc. "

Report Abuse

ukulele wrote on Jul 1, 2009 6:42 AM:

" Yea, it's a democrat issue that the republican Governor will sign because, the state needs the taxes, but at least she can blame it on the democrats too. "

Report Abuse

bobster1985 wrote on Jul 1, 2009 2:18 AM:

" I'm opposed to these taxes - they're not high enough! The U.S. should have done what Japan, Europe, Australia and other countries did years ago and slap on a stiff gasoline tax - say $2-3 per gallon - in order to break our addiction to big gas-guzzling vehicles and imported oil. A liberal idea? Tell that to Charles Krauthammer, the arch-conservative columnist for the Washington Post, who has long advocated such a tax. But whiney voters who think cheap gasoline is a god-given right would never allow it. "

Report Abuse

Satyagraha wrote on Jul 1, 2009 1:34 AM:

" " Please thank your democratic State representative every time you fill up your gas tank. Blah Blah Blah

And while your at it , blah blah blah federal Dems for subsidizing ethanol BLAH BLAH BLAH...always the DEMs with you

How about we thank the corporate slime that speculates on gasoline and oil and drives up the profits for the multinational corporations?

Ethanol is a waste of energy.
Corn and other crops should be grown for food...
oh that's right the corporations control the seed, for ethanol AND food...never mind

Wise up. "

Report Abuse

unionmill wrote on Jun 30, 2009 9:45 PM:

" Just do away with voting..doesn't seem to matter anymore...just get's worst..Darn if you do n Darn if you don't. "

Report Abuse

hawaii wrote on Jun 30, 2009 8:33 PM:

" Saw a popular 76 station with a 7-11 at $3.10 a gallon this AM, was $3:15 this afternoon. Unless B-J received a delivery mid-day today, it is a blantant ripoff. Can't wait to see what the new dawn brings....Betcha $3.35 a gallon. And what is this market pricing all about - you mean market theft...... "

Report Abuse

gotpoi1 wrote on Jun 30, 2009 1:56 PM:

" with all this increase of taxes, and rail transit. big island dont get anything about rail transit, all you goin get is more people moving from oahu to here be cause of the high coast of living, soon just goin to the park or beach you be paying, all ready vulcano park are charging fee. "

Report Abuse

c15683 wrote on Jun 30, 2009 12:09 PM:

" Please thank your democratic State representative every time you fill up your gas tank. Without thier leadership you would be keeping more of your hard earned money.

And while your at it , thank your federal Dems for subsidizing ethanol and prohibiting importation of cheaper ethanol based alternatives..

WAYTO GO DEMS! "

Report Abuse

*Member ID:
*Password:
  Forgot Your Password?
 

Do not use usernames or passwords from your financial accounts!

Note: Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required!

*Create a Member ID:
*Choose a password:
*Re-enter password:
*E-mail Address:
*Year of Birth:
 

(children under 13 cannot register)

 

 
Weather Report
advertisement

Events Calendar
advertisement

November 2009
Su M Tu W Th F S
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30


View Events

Submit Event
Search Events
advertisement







Sponsored Links

Elected Officials
Contact your representatives.
 
Hurricanes
Hurricane season is June 1 through November 30. Learn how to stay prepared.

Kailua-Kona Visitors Guide
Copyright © West Hawaii Today 1997 - | Stephens Media Group Privacy Statement
Advertise | Archives | Contact Us | RSS | Subscription Services