Transportation and Gasoline Sales Tax

In reply to letter writer Kent Moore (Dec. 3): His claim that gasoline taxes are being diverted into the state’s General Fund is plain wrong. Gas taxes are going to Caltrans for building and operating the state highway system, including freeways, to rail guideway projects and to cities and counties for expenditure on local street improvements--strictly to transportation, as they always have.

It is true that the sales tax on gasoline, which is in addition to the gas tax, is going to the state’s General Fund. However, by longstanding arrangement, that amount is being offset by directing one-fourth of a cent of the general sales tax to transportation--mostly to fund transit operations, such as Orange County Transit District, which operates a countywide bus system.

The Legislature put this trade-off into law 17 years ago. The sales tax collected on gasoline in 1972 was equivalent to a one-fourth cent of sales tax on all retail sales. Taking all the years since, it has come out virtually even. There were four or five years after the second oil crisis, when gasoline prices shot up, that the state general fund came out ahead. But for each of the last four years, the state Transportation Fund has come out ahead, by between $16 million and $73 million.

DANA REED

Corona del Mar

Reed is a member of the Orange County Transportation Commission .