Erie County is weighing the potential to cap the sales tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. But the practical value of such a move is drawing heavy concern, depending on what the county decides.<\/p>\n
A flat sales tax of 10 cents per gallon would benefit consumers more than the revenue Erie County could gain, Jim\u2019s Travel Plaza owner Carl Hasselback said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest impact is on the people with the (least) amount of money, because nobody survives in this county without a car, and nobody surviving without buying gas,” he said. “And if I make half a million dollars a year, what’s $100 a tankful, $200 a tankful? If I make $25,000 a year, it’s the beginning and end of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sales tax usually is factored into an item\u2019s price when a consumer makes their purchase. But with gasoline it is added when companies buy it wholesale, and they adjust the final price accordingly. <\/p>\n
Even when there\u2019s been an exemption period, drivers haven\u2019t seen the savings reflected at the pump, Erie County Director of Budget and Management Mark Cornell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we should be doing today, is we should be taking the benefit of hindsight into effect. This is not a, you know, a methodology,” he said. “This is not theoretical. We have hindsight. We did this, and there was no discernible impact to local consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cornell doesn\u2019t think customers would see the benefits because the additional profits would be used by companies to account for their other expenses. <\/p>\n
Hasselback, testifying before the Legislature Thursday, contends that he would keep a certain amount of money to keep making a profit, but competition would naturally drive the price back down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erie County is weighing the potential to cap the sales tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. But the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-186634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}