Gas tax holiday poll

[LuckyTheDog]

If it passes, oil companies and gas station owners will:

[Selatius]

1. If you want to maximize profits, it simply makes no sense not to raise prices with the tax removed.

The shareholders want dividends, and gas companies are not for charity but for profits, just like any other for-profit corporation.

[LuckyTheDog]

3. Bingo! We have a winner. Pick out a stuffed bear!

Of course they'd raise the price.

And guess what, if we tried to "make them pay the tax" as Clinton has proposed, they'd pass the cost of that along to us. The oil business is not as competitive as it once was. if one company did it, the others would follow suit.

In fairnes, they'd probably try to do that under any scenario in which a windfall profits tax was passed. That's why I think that tax -- which both Democrats support -- is a pointless idea.

[Selatius]

4. I do support a profits tax on them. It's a tax on income, not a tax on production.

A tax on production can easily be passed onto the consumer. A prime example is the sales tax. That is readily passed onto consumers. What can't be passed onto consumers is a tax on income. If your income was a hundred dollars and I taxed you one percent, you pay me a dollar and keep 99. Next year, let's say you want to make up for the tax and pass it onto consumers, so you charge a little more and end up with 101. You still pay one percent, so you pay a dollar and change and end up with 99 and pocket change, not 100 even.

[Aloha Spirit]

6. esp. since the shareholders would pay the theoretical Windfall Profit tax. nt

[begin_within]

2. We need a gas PRICE holiday, not a gas tax holiday.

[depakid]

5. Actually, Americans have had a gas holiday for 60 some odd years...

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