Liam Denning, Columnist

Biden’s Gas Tax Holiday Won’t Save Summer

Even if Congress were to give the president what he’s asking for, it wouldn’t help.

June 22, 2022 at 7:38 PM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Taxes aren’t what makes this expensive.
Photographer: Miguel Villagran/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

A three-month federal tax holiday on gasoline won’t do much of anything. Which is about the best thing that can be said of it.

It won’t offer much relief for drivers. Say you have a fairly typical crossover SUV with a 14-gallon tank. When President Joe Biden took office, filling it at the average pump price of about $2.50 a gallon cost almost $35. Today, it costs more than $71. Paring off the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal tax would save all of $2.58. The cost of filling your tank since Biden was sworn in would go from having slightly more than doubled to having merely doubled. Relief?