Who gains from pausing the gas tax? Probably not drivers — or Biden

Would the tax holiday save me money?

Probably not as much as you think.

If the 18.4 cents-per-gallon tax were paused as Biden has asked, consumers would save about $3 on the $75 it costs to fill up a standard sedan or crossover, assuming 15 gallons purchased at $4.98 a gallon.

And motorists may not even see that much. One reason Democratic leaders have opposed a gas tax holiday is skepticism that oil companies would pass along the savings at the pump, as opposed to just pocketing the extra money.

State-level gas tax holidays have yielded a mixed picture.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School examined the impacts in the states that have paused their gas taxes in the last few months and found that in Maryland, 72 percent of tax savings were passed onto consumers, compared with 58 percent to 65 percent in Georgia and 71 percent to 87 percent in Connecticut. Still, the Wharton researchers found that “these price reductions were often not sustained during the entire holiday.”