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CHICAGO (CBS 2) ― Tired of seeing the price at the pump jump every time you need to buy gasoline? Well, the record-high price of gasoline in the Chicago area is linked to a record-high rate of taxation: nearly 20 percent of the Chicago price.
As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, tax refugees wait in long lines on Indianapolis Boulevard. They jockey for position at a pump, lured by prices that are 20 cents a gallon or more cheaper than just a few blocks away back in Illinois.
"It was $4.20. I can come over here and get it for $3.93," said Tikvah Wadley, one of the many fleeing Illinois taxes.
"Does it trouble any of you when you see what you're doing to us?" Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin asked at a Washington, D.C. hearing.
Durbin complained to oil company bosses at a hearing on Capitol Hill about Chicago having the highest gasoline prices in the United States. Largely ignored was the role taxes are playing -- an astounding 10 levels of taxation.
In the city, Motor Fuel Taxes originally for building roads currently go to the Feds, Illinois, Cook County and Chicago. The 9.25 percent sales tax is split among Illinois, Chicago and Cook County's share of the state sales tax; a county home rule tax; RTA transit tax and a Chicago home rule levy.
The watchdog Civic Federation says that on a $4 gallon of gas, the total tax is 79.2 cents. That compares to 77 cents in Los Angeles and 65 cents in New York City.
"Every time the price of gas goes up, the tax goes up with it," said one motorist.
And that, of course, is exactly the point for the politicians. Gov. Blagojevich, for example, is counting on the high price of gasoline to bring at least an extra $220 million in the State Treasury in the fiscal year that begins this July. Most of that will be used to balance the way-out-of-balance budget.
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