September 15, 2006
Editorial: Taking The Wind Out Of Windfall
"Schumer, along with colleague and presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton and others, is calling for a return of the tax on "windfall profits." But he ignores the fact that, according to a new report from the Tax Foundation, the biggest profiteers from oil aren't the companies that produce it and deliver it to our gas tanks, but the federal and state governments that tax it.
From 1977 to 2004, total federal and state taxes on gasoline sales came to $1.34 trillion, thanks to average taxes at the pump of about 40 cents a gallon. Oil company profits over the same period totaled less than half that — or $640 billion. And that doesn't include the billions in taxes the oil companies paid on their profits."