On Sunday I traveled to Milwaukee for a quick family trip. Beautiful sunny day. Great food in the Third Ward. The lakefront was hopping. Life was good.
Not being dumb, I made to sure to fill up the car on my way back home to Illinois. Somewhere along the way on Interstate 94, some 15 minutes before reaching the Illinois border, I filled up the gas tank. I was excited to see gas below $4 a gallon for the first time in a while – $3.96 to be exact.
I made sure to check what prices were when I got home so I could see just how badly Illinoisans are getting hit. At a Wilmette gas station a few blocks from my house it was $5.05 a gallon – more than a dollar higher.
Ok, it’s not a dollar difference everywhere in Illinois, but a look at the average prices on AAA for both Illinois and Wisconsin showed a difference of almost 75 cents on July 31, 2022 ($4.646 vs. $3.907).
It’s no wonder Illinoisans are so ticked off about fuel prices here in Illinois vs. the lower prices in other states. In case you didn’t know it, Illinois has the highest gas prices of any state east of the Rockies.
So what contributes to that one dollar difference?
- When Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office in 2019, the state’s motor fuel tax was a flat 19 cents per gallon. That same year he doubled the tax to 38 cents.
- Pritzker also added a new feature which increases gas prices by inflation each year going forward. That’s added $1.2 cents to the gas tax so far. There will be bigger increases next year.
- Then there is the sales tax on gasoline in Illinois. Illinois is one of just seven states to tack on a sales tax to gasoline prices. That’s on top of the motor fuel taxes I mentioned above. So as gas prices go up, so, too, do the gas taxes Illinoisans pay. Those sales taxes have pushed overall state gas taxes higher since 2019 by about 13 cents.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin has a flat 30.9 cent motor fuel tax and a 2 cent inspection fee. Those taxes haven’t changed since at least 2019.
Taxes don’t explain all the gas price differences between Illinois and its neighboring states – there are other regulatory and environmental requirements in Illinois that push up prices here even higher – but there’s no denying that higher gas taxes have contributed to the pains Illinoisans face at the pump.
What’s amazing is that the spike in gas prices means there’s been a windfall in state gas tax revenues and yet Gov. Pritzker has done nothing to cut gas taxes.
Instead, his administration has enjoyed those windfall revenues – never mind the squeeze put on struggling Illinoisans.
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