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Show Utah's Share of Gas Tax May Be Millions Short Utah's share of gas tax revenues may fall more than $4,000,000 short of current estimates by 1964 because of the trend to smaller cars, it is pointed out by J. C. Williams, Wil-liams, Southern Utah Area Chairman Chair-man of the Utah Petroleum Council. Coun-cil. The decrease in gas tax revenues has been attributod to high gasoline gaso-line tax rates, which are encouraging encourag-ing the purchase of smaller cars, Mr. Williams declared. For the first five months of 1960, smaller car purchases in Utah represented approximately 28.9 of the total new car sales in Utah about equal to the national average of 30. Total national gasoline tax receipts re-ceipts will be $584,000,000 below anticipated levels by 1964, according accord-ing to economists speaking at the National Highway Congress meetings meet-ings held recently in Washington, D.C. These experts warned that any attempt to increase gasoline tax revenues by higher gasoline taxes would be "self-defeating," for it would lead to less motoring or even more small cars sales. - The $4,000,000 decrease in Utah's figures would come from a $2,000,000 decline in state taxes below the level anticipated for 1964. In addition, the federal loss would be $217,000,000, of which Utah's share would be slightly more than $2,000,000. It is estimated that small car sales will continue to rise. By 1964, small car sales will account for 42 of the total new car sales. |
