By Robert Kittle
The state Senate is looking at a House plan and a Senate plan for fixing South Carolina roads, both of which include raising the state’s gas tax. How much would the plans cost you?
The House plan would raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon. If you drive 12,000 miles a year and your car gets 24 miles per gallon, you use 500 gallons of gas per year. That means the House plan would cost you $50 more per year in gas taxes. But the House plan also includes an income tax cut. It wouldn’t apply to everyone, but the average taxpayer would save about $48 a year. The House plan would also raise the sales tax cap on vehicles, which is now $300, to $500. The House plan would raise $427 million a year in additional money for roads and bridges.
The Senate plan would raise the gas tax by 12 cents a gallon. That would cost the average driver $60 more per year at the gas pump. The Senate plan would also double the driver’s license fee from $25 to $50. The Senate bill does not include a tax cut. The Senate plan would bring in $800 million a year in new money for roads and bridges.
Driver Carley Spears says she has mixed feelings about raising the gas tax. “If there’s bad roads and it’s tearing up your car, then I guess you’re going to kinda get it in other ways, maybe other expenses. It’s just frustrating because everything keeps increasing. But I guess sometimes you have to spend money to not have to spend larger amounts of money.”
According to the Alliance to Fix Our Roads, the average South Carolina driver pays $255 a year in extra vehicle maintenance costs caused by the poor condition of our roads.
But Spears asks, “Isn’t there another place we can kind of cut things without it affecting our pockets so much?”
That’s how a lot of drivers feel, saying the DOT gets enough money as it is and wondering why it needs more to fix roads.
State lawmakers say the answer is simple math. The state’s gas tax is fourth-lowest in the nation and has not increased since 1987. Meanwhile, cars are getting better and better gas mileage. So while there are more cars on our roads causing more wear and tear, there’s no more money coming in from the gas tax. On top of that, the cost of repairing roads has gone up during that time, meaning the same dollars repair fewer potholes or repave fewer miles of road.
On Thursday, the state Senate refused to put a roads bill on special order, which would have given it priority status on the calendar and guaranteed they would take a vote. Senators who voted against putting it on special order said there was no reason for it because they’re working on a compromise plan, so there’s no need to vote on one of the current bills. But critics say they think it means senators won’t pass a plan this year.
If they don’t, that means you won’t be paying more in gas taxes, but would also mean no additional money to improve roads.
