Gas Prices Mixed Nationally: These 10 States Have the Highest Gas Taxes

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 11, 11:38AM EST · Published Feb 5, 6:40AM EST

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Gas Prices Mixed Nationally: These 10 States Have the Highest Gas Taxes — © TECC / iStock

Auto association AAA has announced that gasoline price movements were mixed last month. State by state, the price changes were muted. While the group said the price of oil was the primary component of the changes, gas taxes are among the primary reasons gas prices are low from state to state. The taxes range from $0.60 per gallon in Pennsylvania to low of just above $0.12 in Alaska. In the five states with the highest gas taxes, the amount is above $0.44.

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In the most recent analysis, Jeanette Casselano, AAA spokesperson, said:

Three-fourths of the country faced below freezing temperatures last week which may have prompted many motorists, especially in the mid-west, to fill-up early and often ahead of the storm, in turn driving demand. This is similar to what we see prior to hurricanes. Now that the storm has passed, demand and is likely to fall more in-line with typical February estimates.

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During the first week in February, only eight states had price increases. The AAA reported the average cost for a gallon of regular stayed at $2.26 nationwide. The agency also pointed out that gas demand was 9.6 million barrels a day in the United States for the final week in January, based on Energy Information Administration data. This is close to the level of demand in many weeks of the summer. The drop in cold weather will cut that. However, demand levels have increased gas prices compared to a year ago, up $0.34 a gallon.

Gas taxes are a much larger contributor to prices states with high levies. These include, in order of the 10 most expensive per gallon from top to bottom:

Pennsylvania, $0.587
California, $0.535
Washington, $0.494
Hawaii, $0.490
New York, $0.443
Michigan, $0.424
Indiana, $0.419
Florida, $0.416
Connecticut, $0.393
New Jersey, $0.371

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High gas taxes are often part of the funding for state roads. According to the 24/7 Wall St. article, States With the Highest and Lowest Gas Taxes:

A large share of the nation’s roads are in mediocre to poor condition. According to a report released by the American Society of Civil Engineers, some 21% of major U.S. highways have “poor pavement condition.” In some parts of the country, the problem is far more pronounced. In Rhode Island and Massachusetts, over 30% of roads are in sub-optimal condition.

Find out more about the states with the highest and lowest gas taxes.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.