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Drivers may get a break from California's automatic gas tax hike this summer, according to KTLA.
Governor Gavin Newsom's new budget proposal for the 2022-23 budget year seeks to halt the increase.
“It’s a $523 million dollar gas tax holiday of sorts,” Newsom said while describing the plan.
California's excise tax has been rising incrementally since 2017 thanks to Senate Bill 1, which aims to raise money to fund transportation projects like road and bridge repairs.
“We’re going to backfill it in terms of the tax itself to transportation projects so that there’s no direct impact to investments,” Newsom said during a news conference on Monday, January 10. “But there will be a direct impact by avoiding that inflation adjustment that comes in July … to increase the gas tax.”
At around 51 cents per gallon, California's excise tax is already the highest in the U.S., according to KTLA.
The current cost for a gallon of regular unleaded gas is about $4.65 which is $1.30 over the national average.
The gas tax pause is one of the 10 tax incentives Newsom included in his proposed $286 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts on July 1, the same day the gas tax is scheduled to rise again.