by Dave Williams | Oct 6, 2023 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp has extended the temporary suspension of Georgia’s sales tax on gasoline and other motor fuels for another month.
The Republican governor cited ongoing inflation and an uncertain economy caused by what he called irresponsible policies at the federal level for the need to keep the suspension he ordered last month in effect. The suspension will run through Nov. 11.
“We’re taking action at the state level to deliver relief to hardworking Georgians fighting through Bidenflation, soaring interest rates, and sky-high prices due to Bidenomics,” Kemp said Friday.
The average price of regular gasoline in Georgia is $3.18 per gallon, about 40 cents less than last month.
The current suspension of the motor fuels tax is the second Kemp has ordered. He first suspended the tax in March of last year, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions on Russia drove gasoline prices in Georgia to a record high of more than $4 a gallon. The first suspension remained in effect until last January.
With a budget surplus that had reached an estimated $4.8 billion at the end of the last fiscal year in June, the state can afford to keep the suspension in place.
Republicans have criticized President Joe Biden for canceling oil and gas leases on hundreds of thousands of acres in Alaska’s environmentally fragile Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at a time when pump prices are well above where they were when he took office in 2021.
Biden authorized large withdrawals from the national Strategic Oil Reserve earlier this year in an effort to tamp down rising gasoline prices. But with the reserve at its lowest level in decade, he isn’t expected to reduce the stockpile further.
