On March 14, 2012, the United States Senate passed, on a bipartisan basis, a bill to provide for an extension of highway-related taxes and the funding of infrastructural spending by the Federal Highway Trust Fund (FHTF), which included an anti-tax haven amendment.
The Democrat-led Senate voted 74-22 to approve the renewal and move it to the House of Representatives, where the consideration of a rival five-year partial extension has stalled and its Republican leadership is believed to be in favor of picking up the Senate’s bill.
A substantial majority of the revenue currently received to finance the FHTF is provided by three taxes imposed on highway motor fuels, and the rest from a retail sales tax on heavy vehicles, a manufacturers’ excise tax on heavy vehicle tires, and an annual use tax on heavy vehicles. Most of those taxes are due to expire at the end of this month, which makes their extension sufficiently urgent, or transportation repair and construction projects will cease.
The Senate bill extends the FHTF funding authority to end-September 2013 and the expiring taxes to end-September 2015. Revenue to boost FHTF funding is also being found from several other areas. For example, revenue from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank excise taxes on most highway, aviation and inland waterway fuels (also to be extended beyond March 31, 2012); “the gas guzzler tax” on the sales of automobiles with a fuel economy of 22.5 miles per gallon, or less; and the appropriations of certain import tariffs, would all be allocated to the FHTF.
