The Tax That Dare Not Be Hiked

[cjk374]

Full service stations still exist?  WHAAAAAAAT?????      As in like, someone comes out of the store when you run over the airhose-activated bell and asks you how much gas you want in your car?  They even check under the hood?

I thought that idea was a relic of the past.

[vdeane]

Why is that? Just pay cash, and you'll get the cheaper price.

Who wants to use cash for anything?  Aside from putting quarters in the laundry machine, I use cash VERY rarely.  It's inconvenient (and it's easier for me than most here since I'm a girl and have things like a purse and a wallet that's large enough to hold coins).

[jeffandnicole]

Full service stations still exist?  WHAAAAAAAT?????      As in like, someone comes out of the store when you run over the airhose-activated bell and asks you how much gas you want in your car?  They even check under the hood?

I thought that idea was a relic of the past.

Well, no.  In the 1950's, when there was very little traffic out there, they would do that. 

Today, each attendant monitors about 2 dual sided gas pumps (or 1 island) (meaning he's responsible for about 4 vehicles), and there's usually at least one car out there already.  The more popular the station, the more likely all the pumps will be in use, with possibly one or two waiting to pull in. 

Speaking of NJ here, this is the general process:  You pull up to an open pump.  The attendant will come to your window.  The driver says what they want (Fill it, regular; $20 Premium), and either says Cash or hands over the credit card, as most pumps do have the pay-at-the-pump feature.  The attendant runs the credit card, may hand it back to you or leave it in the machine, sticks the nozzle in the fuel line on the car, starts it up, and usually walks away to another vehicle.  After the pump has stopped, the attendant returns to the vehicle, tops it off or pulls out the pump, puts it back, waits for the receipt and hands it to you (along with the credit card, if he left it in the machine (which foreign owned stations tend to do).  It's extremely rare if the attendant washes the windows, and never checks under the hood.  It's also very rare the attendant will be female.  If someone says they've never had their gas pumped by a female, they're probably not exaggerating.

If they have time to stand, there's usually a small 3'x6' or so booth on the island between the pumps, which is usually heated as well. This is also where the cash register and secondary credit card machine would be located as well.

Unlike in the past when the guy pumping gas probably worked in the gas station's repair shop and could rebuild your car if necessary, today's attendants are simply gas jockeys and would most likely be holding a coffee or red bull.

Examples: 

Wawa, where there are 4 islands with 2 machines each, allowing for 16 vehicles to be served at one time.  You can also see the small booth inbetween the pump.  In this case, there will be 3 attendants working; 1 for each of the red labeled gas islands.  Note, the yellow island on the left is Diesel Only...and NJ law states diesel is Self Serve.  Go figure.  http://goo.gl/maps/41qwD

Here's a smaller station: Just 1 island which can process 4 cars at once.  It happens to have a nice, large booth too.  http://goo.gl/maps/YJDaF

[jeffandnicole]

But I absolutely steer clear of the cash/credit pricing stations.

Why is that? Just pay cash, and you'll get the cheaper price.

Like others - I rarely carry cash.  And credit cards earn points for cash back, hotel stays, etc (well, that's what my 2 main cards do).  While the basic rate is 1% towards points, some promotions will allow one to earn 5 points or more per dollar at the gas pump.  So, if I can fill up at the pump and get several nights for free at a Hilton because of it, then credit is the way to go.  I use credit to pay my cable bill each month too, along with any other bill that allows me to, without a surcharge.  My gas/electric bill will surcharge me if I use credit, so I don't.

PS - Yes, I pay off the balance each month.

[Pete from Boston]

Why is that? Just pay cash, and you'll get the cheaper price.

Who wants to use cash for anything?  Aside from putting quarters in the laundry machine, I use cash VERY rarely.  It's inconvenient (and it's easier for me than most here since I'm a girl and have things like a purse and a wallet that's large enough to hold coins).

I saw a band last night at small bar. There was a five dollar cover. I handed the guy a crisp fin out of my pocket, and was done.  No muss, no fuss.

You can actually hand somebody cash, not have to give a cut to some company, not have to have a paper trail, not have to require multiple transactions when doing collective purchasing (nothing is more obnoxious to me than a table splitting a check everyone wants to run their card separately)... Cash is a very, very useful thing to have.

[jeffandnicole]

Why is that? Just pay cash, and you'll get the cheaper price.

Who wants to use cash for anything?  Aside from putting quarters in the laundry machine, I use cash VERY rarely.  It's inconvenient (and it's easier for me than most here since I'm a girl and have things like a purse and a wallet that's large enough to hold coins).

I saw a band last night at small bar. There was a five dollar cover. I handed the guy a crisp fin out of my pocket, and was done.  No muss, no fuss.

You can actually hand somebody cash, not have to give a cut to some company, not have to have a paper trail, not have to require multiple transactions when doing collective purchasing (nothing is more obnoxious to me than a table splitting a check everyone wants to run their card separately)... Cash is a very, very useful thing to have.

OK, that I try not to do.  I'll rather just pay cash when splitting a bill.  So yes, there is some planning involved, including for the cover situation as mentioned.  And if I'm going to a bar where I'll be paying per drink, I'll try to bring cash, including ones for tips.  In fact, I do try to have enough cash to pay a tip at a restaurant as well, although most likely the bill will be going on a card if I'm not splitting bills.

But moving away from that, if I'm at a store, or a gas station, or wherever, then I'm using credit. 

[Duke87]

I use cash for small purchases becauce forcing a fee on the merchant because I spent $1.25 on a soda seems rude to me. I use cash at stores and restaurants that do not accept cards or strongly prefer not to (still very common in New York City). I tip in cash if possible because I can't guarantee that the person I'm trying to tip will ever see the money if I put it on my card.

But the key is these are all relatively small expenses and while I do carry cash I do not carry loads of it. I think my wallet currently contains about $21 in cash. Not enough to fill my gas tank with, even with prices having gone down as much as they have.

Even still, I would be far more inclined to pay cash for gasoline if I could do so at the pump. The need to make two trips inside is the deal-breaker for me.

[1995hoo]

I've seen one gas station that had a pay-at-the-pump feature accepting cash, a Shell station in Fairfax City (for those who know the area, it was Main Street Shell just west of Burke Station Road). This was quite some time ago, mid-1990s if memory serves, back when gas over $1.00 a gallon became normal. There was a bill acceptor that looked similar to the ones on soda machines located next to the credit card acceptor.

It flopped. Problem was, it didn't make change. Instead it printed a receipt and you had to go stand on line at the cashier, which defeated the purpose of paying this way unless you filled it exactly to an even dollar amount (because it didn't take coins) AND you paid the exact amount (definitely not routine because if you put in $14, most people using cash would pay $15). The cash acceptor things have been gone from that station for years, although I suppose I should concede I haven't bought gas there for years either after I had an argument with a rude employee (plus I don't live near there anymore so there's little reason to go there for gas).

[cpzilliacus]

I've seen one gas station that had a pay-at-the-pump feature accepting cash, a Shell station in Fairfax City (for those who know the area, it was Main Street Shell just west of Burke Station Road). This was quite some time ago, mid-1990s if memory serves, back when gas over $1.00 a gallon became normal. There was a bill acceptor that looked similar to the ones on soda machines located next to the credit card acceptor.

These were once common in at least some EU nations.   

It flopped. Problem was, it didn't make change. Instead it printed a receipt and you had to go stand on line at the cashier, which defeated the purpose of paying this way unless you filled it exactly to an even dollar amount (because it didn't take coins) AND you paid the exact amount (definitely not routine because if you put in $14, most people using cash would pay $15). The cash acceptor things have been gone from that station for years, although I suppose I should concede I haven't bought gas there for years either after I had an argument with a rude employee (plus I don't live near there anymore so there's little reason to go there for gas).

The once I have seen required payment first, and then you could pump up to that amount.  I do not think they made change, so it was not a good idea to overpay.

[oscar]

Arco stations in California and other western states, which don't take credit cards last I heard, usually have central bill acceptors covering multiple pumps.  You still have to go inside to get change, if you paid more than you pumped. 

Usually, when I pumped gas at an Arco station, I paid with a large bill not accepted by the bill acceptors (while Arcos are big bill-friendly, their acceptors don't take bills over $20), so that meant one or two trips inside.  That inconvenience was OK with me, if I wanted to spend down the big bills in my wallet toward the end of my trip, once I was sure I wouldn't need cash from an out-of-network ATM outside my bank's largely southern territory.   Usually I need to use a restroom anyway whenever I need to refuel my car, though restroom availability is uneven at the smaller Arco stations.

[NJRoadfan]

Some new Sheetz stations take cash at the pump. Aside from a few stations I saw in Pinellas County FL, split cash/credit pricing seems to be strictly a NJ thing for the most part. It thrives because cash payment is tendered at the pump by the attendant, no need to go into a mini-mart or even leave your car.

[oscar]

Aside from a few stations I saw in Pinellas County FL, split cash/credit pricing seems to be strictly a NJ thing for the most part. It thrives because cash payment is tendered at the pump by the attendant, no need to go into a mini-mart or even leave your car.

At least one gas station in my area, a Liberty, has split pricing with no outside attendant.  I paid cash in that instance to get the cash discount, on a 20+ gallon fill-up of my pickup truck.  That was a borderline decision (two trips inside to prepay then get change, and passing up the cashback bonus on my credit card), which I wouldn't have made for the much smaller fill-up for my car. 

[Thing 342]

Some new Sheetz stations take cash at the pump. Aside from a few stations I saw in Pinellas County FL, split cash/credit pricing seems to be strictly a NJ thing for the most part. It thrives because cash payment is tendered at the pump by the attendant, no need to go into a mini-mart or even leave your car.

I know of at least 2 stations on the Virginia Peninsula with spit pricing, with one (a Citgo, I think) having a 20-cent (2.25 vs 2.45) difference between cash and credit.

[vdeane]

I saw a band last night at small bar. There was a five dollar cover. I handed the guy a crisp fin out of my pocket, and was done.  No muss, no fuss.

You can actually hand somebody cash, not have to give a cut to some company, not have to have a paper trail, not have to require multiple transactions when doing collective purchasing (nothing is more obnoxious to me than a table splitting a check everyone wants to run their card separately)... Cash is a very, very useful thing to have.

I'm not familiar with bars.  Too loud, too many people for my tastes.  Plus all I know about alcoholic beverages is that I like vodka and don't like beer, scotch, or red wine.

As for restaurants, my preference is that the bills be separate like in every other country.

[J N Winkler]

To be fair, I haven't a clue how the excises are collected and distributed, and if it isn't penny-for-penny in the state where the fuel is purchased, there's the problem.

It is pretty close to penny-for-penny:  each state has a minimum recovery of 90% or more from the federal gas tax.  There is some cross-subsidization but compared to the total highway budget, it is quite small.  Opposition to a fuel tax increase at the federal level is largely ideological.

Who wants to use cash for anything?  Aside from putting quarters in the laundry machine, I use cash VERY rarely.  It's inconvenient (and it's easier for me than most here since I'm a girl and have things like a purse and a wallet that's large enough to hold coins).

There are actually men who use coin purses--I am one of them.

I use a credit card for most transactions, including all fuel purchases, partly because that builds up a spending history I can consult online and export into a spreadsheet.  If I pay cash, generally my only record of the transaction is a receipt printed on thermal paper, which rots pretty quickly unless it is promptly put into dark storage.  However, I occasionally pay cash for certain services (such as haircuts or taxi rides) where I want to be able to give a tip with part of the change.

Speaking of NJ here, this is the general process:  You pull up to an open pump.  The attendant will come to your window.  The driver says what they want (Fill it, regular; $20 Premium), and either says Cash or hands over the credit card, as most pumps do have the pay-at-the-pump feature.  The attendant runs the credit card, may hand it back to you or leave it in the machine, sticks the nozzle in the fuel line on the car, starts it up, and usually walks away to another vehicle.  After the pump has stopped, the attendant returns to the vehicle, tops it off or pulls out the pump, puts it back, waits for the receipt and hands it to you (along with the credit card, if he left it in the machine, which foreign owned stations tend to do).  It's extremely rare if the attendant washes the windows, and never checks under the hood.  It's also very rare the attendant will be female.  If someone says they've never had their gas pumped by a female, they're probably not exaggerating.

The procedure in Oregon is similar, except the attendant never leaves the pump handle.  I suspect this is because the law requires the pump to be under his continuous supervision.  (I do not think I have ever seen a female gas jockey on my travels in either New Jersey or Oregon.)

When I took my thirteen-states trip last September, I thought I might be able to bridge Oregon both times without stopping for fuel, but on my second crossing of the state I stopped for gas in Brookings (just north of the California state line) since my gauge was on empty and I had a poor feel for fuel availability on US 101 south.  I had to watch while someone else pumped my gas, which I ordinarily don't care for, but fortunately this gas jockey was willing to follow my top-off instructions (pump at lowest flow rate until shutoff, then pump at a higher flow rate until the pump shuts off again, then cap the tank and turn until you lose count of the clicks).

I actually don't want anyone else to do the other elements of a traditional "full service" fillup.  On many cars (including mine) a warm dipstick check is a waste of time because the bottom of the dipstick is exposed to splash from the crankshaft, which means a true reading cannot be taken until after drainback.  And when I have a lot of dead bugs on my windshield, I want to be left alone to squeegee it as many times as I need to get it perfectly clear.  The attendant can be fired if he fails to turn my car over fast enough, but it's my head on the chopping block if I drive after dark and injure or kill someone because my exterior glass was not clean enough.

[1995hoo]

Split cash/credit seems to be common in South Carolina. Why, I have no idea.

[SidS1045]

And sometimes voters are why we can't have nice things.  Inflation-indexed gas tax was repealed here by referendum last month.  Now, a) politicians afraid to touch the gas tax have to incrementally pass any increase, and b) they have a clear sense that voters are not only unafraid to vote against them for it, but are so motivated against gas tax that they'll circumvent the legislature if need be to push back against it. 

We have the level of infrastructure maintenance we deserve, I'm afraid.

The Massachusetts repeal is a good example of why initiative petition should NEVER be used as a means of deciding taxation issues.

Ah, no.

I understand completely the necessity of taxation, particularly for building adequate, safe roads.  But I also remember, as too few do, that one reason we broke away from the British crown was the hated "taxation without representation."

Or, to put it in modern terms:  If my taxes are to be raised, let the legislators go on the record, every single time they think an increase is necessary.  Automatic tax increases are a perfect way for them to avoid responsibility.

[Duke87]

The trouble I have with that logic is that despite the rhetoric, MA never enacted a tax that automatically increased. What they did was index the tax to inflation, in order to prevent it from automatically decreasing as any tax which is a flat amount rather than a percentage does. The same thing would more or less be achieved with a tax that is a percentage of the untaxed price (a la sales tax) rather than a set number of cents per gallon, but then nobody would be talking about "automatic tax increases". That jive successfully taking hold just shows how financially illiterate most people are.

[Pete from Boston]

I saw a band last night at small bar. There was a five dollar cover. I handed the guy a crisp fin out of my pocket, and was done.  No muss, no fuss.

You can actually hand somebody cash, not have to give a cut to some company, not have to have a paper trail, not have to require multiple transactions when doing collective purchasing (nothing is more obnoxious to me than a table splitting a check everyone wants to run their card separately)... Cash is a very, very useful thing to have.

I'm not familiar with bars.  Too loud, too many people for my tastes.  Plus all I know about alcoholic beverages is that I like vodka and don't like beer, scotch, or red wine.

As for restaurants, my preference is that the bills be separate like in every other country.

Cash is more flexible and carries some extra leverage from being instantaneous.  This is why people want to use cash for things.

[formulanone]

To be fair, I haven't a clue how the excises are collected and distributed, and if it isn't penny-for-penny in the state where the fuel is purchased, there's the problem.

It is pretty close to penny-for-penny:  each state has a minimum recovery of 90% or more from the federal gas tax.  There is some cross-subsidization but compared to the total highway budget, it is quite small.  Opposition to a fuel tax increase at the federal level is largely ideological.

Thanks for that.

Split cash/credit seems to be common in South Carolina. Why, I have no idea.

Seems to me that some states permit it and others don't.

Stations in Florida started doing it around 2009 or so, around the time after the price started to rebound. But I never noticed such a thing the previous 25 years I'd lived in the state.

Having taken a few drives between Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana this year, I haven't noticed a single station posting separate prices at all, so maybe they do not permit it. Not sure on Georgia, though.

Full service stations still exist?  WHAAAAAAAT?????      As in like, someone comes out of the store when you run over the airhose-activated bell and asks you how much gas you want in your car?  They even check under the hood?

I thought that idea was a relic of the past.

There's still one in Boca Raton, Florida. Still has a mechanical shop, too...Lots of old-money folks in that area, but no car dealerships for servicing immediate mishaps.

[SidS1045]

The trouble I have with that logic is that despite the rhetoric, MA never enacted a tax that automatically increased. What they did was index the tax to inflation, in order to prevent it from automatically decreasing as any tax which is a flat amount rather than a percentage does. The same thing would more or less be achieved with a tax that is a percentage of the untaxed price (a la sales tax) rather than a set number of cents per gallon, but then nobody would be talking about "automatic tax increases". That jive successfully taking hold just shows how financially illiterate most people are.

A tax rising by indexing it to inflation is still a tax increase, and I do not tolerate tax increases where my elected representative is too afraid to figuratively look me in the eye while grabbing my wallet.  I also do not tolerate elected officials evading their responsibility or forgetting in whose name they were elected in the first place.  If the legislature wants to raise taxes because road construction got more expensive, let them go on the record instead of hiding behind semantic clap-trap or a reflexive "taxes=bad."


This country's collective failure to have adult conversations when it comes to taxes starts and ends with knowing exactly what taxes are being levied and in what amounts, and too few of us even bother to find out that info.

[Pete from Boston]

I'm not willing to accept that we have unsafe roads until the country is willing "to have adult conversations when it comes to taxes."  We collectively don't allow politicians to vote to keep the gas tax the same amount (falsely called an "increase" when people look only at numbers and not actual value). 

I said earlier that we deserve our crappy roads, and this is exactly why–we insist on this fantasy that we are holding politicians to a high standard while we simultaneously bind them to our low standard (the aforementioned "taxes = bad" attitude).

And now, because we can't even have the gas tax in Massachusetts stay the same in real dollars without a dog-and-pony show of a vote we doom to failure, we don't actually get the value of the gas tax passed.  We get less of the agreed-upon amount every day, week, month, year after it passes. 

I'd love to have that adult conversation, but we're very deficient in a key component–adults.

[Duke87]

A tax rising by indexing it to inflation is still a tax increase

Not in real dollars it isn't. The value of money decreases over time. Indexing something to inflation keeps its value the same. And this isn't just true of taxes - the social security administration adjusts the payments it sends people up a bit every year to compensate for inflation. They call it a "cost of living adjustment".

Failure to make these adjustments results in ever-dwindling revenue. Indeed, the reason we are having this conversation is because the federal gas tax has not been touched in two decades and has lost 40% of its purchasing power in that time ($1 in 2014 = 61 cents in 1993).

[cpzilliacus]

A tax rising by indexing it to inflation is still a tax increase

Not in real dollars it isn't. The value of money decreases over time. Indexing something to inflation keeps its value the same. And this isn't just true of taxes - the social security administration adjusts the payments it sends people up a bit every year to compensate for inflation. They call it a "cost of living adjustment".

Failure to make these adjustments results in ever-dwindling revenue. Indeed, the reason we are having this conversation is because the federal gas tax has not been touched in two decades and has lost 40% of its purchasing power in that time ($1 in 2014 = 61 cents in 1993).

I agree with the above.

If Congress could index the federal income tax brackets to inflation, then it seems reasonable to also index the federal motor fuel tax rate to inflation.

[vdeane]

Here's a crazy idea that will probably never happen but would vastly improve financial literacy: index the dollar to inflation.  That way, the cost of goods would not rise when inflation occurs, but what would happen is that people's paychecks would evaporate.  I bet people would notice inflation a LOT more if it happened that way.  It would also incentivize saving, convince people to stop treating homes as investments, and make Wall St worthless... win-win as far as I'm concerned.