Suffolk giving tax relief on gas prices

After seeing gas prices skyrocket 76 cents a gallon in the last year, Suffolk drivers will gain a bit of relief starting today.

Under a new law, anyone who buys gasoline in Suffolk will pay county sales tax only on the first $3 of every gallon. Pumps around the county will be recalibrated to not charge the 4.25 percent county tax on any amount above that, as prices edge toward $4 a gallon.

According to AAA, the average price for a gallon of regular gas in Suffolk and Nassau counties Monday was $3.62, up from $2.86 a year ago.

The savings amount to only a couple of pennies a gallon. But at a news conference yesterday, Legis. Tom Muratore (R-Ronkonkoma), who sponsored the bill last June, said every little bit helps.

"Pennies make a dime and dimes make a dollar," he said.

As he filled up his pickup truck in Centereach Monday morning, Joe Rubino, 27, shrugged off having missed out on the savings by one day. After seeing prices rise so much, Rubino, of Centereach, said he would have barely noticed a couple of cents' difference.

Legis. Jay Schneiderman (I-Montauk) said the gasoline tax cap would guarantee that as high as gas prices may rise, Suffolk drivers will only pay sales taxes on $3 a gallon. A bipartisan group of legislators who co-sponsored the measure said they did not want the county to gain a tax windfall from drivers struggling under the weight of rising gas prices.

In reality, though, legislative budget analysts said last year that the county would not have gained such a windfall. When gas prices rise, they said, people spend less on other things, lowering the amount the county gets in sales tax for those other products.

The budget analysts also estimated that, assuming gas costs $3.50 a gallon, the county would lose $4 million this year in revenue that it could have collected if it had not passed the law.

Should the price go up to $4 a gallon, the county would lose $9.5 million a year in uncollected revenue - amounts the Legislature's Budget Review Office warned could one day put pressure on raising property taxes to make up the difference.