Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is poised, perhaps as early as this week, to send lawmakers a plan to apply the state’s 6% sales tax to diesel and gasoline purchases.
Diesel is already taxed at 24.25 cents a gallon and gasoline at 23 cents.
Louis Campion, president of the Maryland Motor Truck Association, declined to comment on the proposal.
“I don’t want to comment until we see the language and the details because there’s so much back and forth about what this will actually look like and the confusion is great even amongst the governor’s staff,” Campion said.
O’Malley spokeswoman Raquel Guillory told Transport Topics that details of the plan have not been finalized.
According to news reports, however, the governor will ask legislators to phase in the 6% sales tax over three years in increments of 2% per year.
Also, O’Malley said in a recent radio interview that the sales tax would have a ceiling in case fuel prices spiked, the Washington Post reported.
In October a special state commission on transportation funding recommended a 15-cent increase for the state’s diesel and gasoline taxes.
