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WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans blocked a proposal Tuesday to tax the windfall profits of the largest oil companies, despite pleas by Democratic leaders to use the measure to address America’s anger over $4 a gallon gasoline.

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a tax on any “unreasonable” profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies and given the federal government more power to address oil market speculation that the bill’s supporters argue has added to the crude oil price surge.

“Americans are furious about what’s going on,” declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and want Congress to do something about oil company profits and “an orgy of speculation” on oil markets. More

The Hebron woman is doing a slow burn over a $300 bill she received from the state. It was for uncollected cigarette taxes on 24 cartons of cigarettes she purchased from out of state. She is one of 5,469 Ohioans who received bills from the state Department of Taxation last month totaling $2.15 million in uncollected cigarette taxes. In Franklin County, 399 people were billed $143,613 on 11,489 cartons of cigarettes.

“I made a phone call. Then I would give them my credit-card number to charge it to and that would be it,” Kochalko explained of her purchase from a company in New York. The Taxation Department requested the names of Ohioans who purchased cigarettes from five vendors between July 2007 and March. That’s not fair to smokers and business owners who follow the rules and pay taxes on their cigarettes, said John Kohlstrand, a Taxation Department spokesman. More

Photo squeaky

Janet Novack
forbes.com
A federal judge in Southern Florida today unsealed an indictment charging two foreign bankers, one a former private banker for UBS AG, with defrauding the U.S. by helping billionaire Orange County, Calf., real estate developer Igor M. Olenicoff evade U.S. taxes on $200 million hidden in Swiss and Liechtenstein bank accounts.

One of the those indicted, Bradley Birkenfeld, is a 43-year-old U.S. citizen who, the indictment says, worked from 2001 to 2006 in the private banking division of a Swiss bank, which “also owns and operates banks, investment banks and stock brokerage businesses throughout the United States.” Federal election records show a Bradley Birkenfeld contributed to candidates during that period, listing his employer as UBS (nyse: UBS - news - people ) and his address as Geneva, Switzerland. Read more

Photo courtesy of Andrew Baron

First, we need to take into account inflation. As for gas prices, in 1950 the price of gas was approximately 30 cents per gallon. Adjusted for inflation, a gallon of gas today should cost right at $2.64, assuming taxes are the same. The tax per gallon of gas in 1950 was roughly 1.5% of the price. Today, federal, state, and local taxes account for approximately 20% of gas’s posted price. Taking inflation and the increase in taxes into account (assuming no change in supply or demand) the same gallon of gas that cost 30 cents in 1950 should today cost about $3.13.
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