Okay, now I'm pissed... $2.67/gallon for 87-octane tonight after the prices had been steadily falling for a week.
As an exercise, let's see what the base cost of a gallon is in different states. For this part of California, you caluclate it thusly:
- Subtract sales tax (in L.A. County, it's 8.25%). Do this first, since the sales tax is usually levied *after* the state and federal taxes have been added in.
- Subtract the state tax of 18c/gallon; other states will likely have a different number for this.
- Subtract the federal tax of 18c/gallon - this one's a constant, so use this figure.
Therefore, for Californians resident in L.A., we have:
$2.67 / 1.0825 = $2.47 (rounding up to the nearest penny in all cases)
$2.47 - 18c = $2.29
$2.29 - 18c = $2.11 - Oil company net
Expressed as a percentage, $2.11 is 79% of the price of a $2.67 gallon of gas. That's what's going back to the oil companies before taxes.
Obviously, these numbers can change depending on local prices and state and sales taxes - but it would be interesting to see if that 79% number holds relatively stationary between states.