California statewide sales tax is 7.25%...looks like a typo on the graphic. California charges this sales tax on the total with Federal & other CA taxes...so they are “taxing a tax”! Also, there are county/city “add-ons” to the sales tax, Fresno Co. (home of FR) has a sales tax rate of 7.975%.
http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/pam71.htm
After reading more, it is more complicated...due to something called the “Fuel Tax Swap”...you pay 2.25% of sales tax at the pump, but an additional 5% is built into the “state excise tax”?? I need a lawyer to decipher it!!
Additionally, beginning July 1, 2011, the state excise tax on motor vehicle fuel increased by .4 cents ($0.004) per gallon. Therefore from July 1, 2011, to June 30, 2012, the state motor vehicle fuel excise tax is 35.7 cents ($0.357) per gallon. Aviation gasoline will continue to be subject to the original state motor vehicle fuel excise tax of 18 cents ($0.18) per gallon and remains exempt from sales and use tax.”
Suffice it to say that we are paying a cr**load of state taxes (at least 35.7 cents) on auto fuel...plus Federal taxes of course!
California also has a special sales tax rate of 2.25% on motor gasoline.
http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/gasswapfaq.htm#1
What is the Fuel Tax Swap?
The Fuel Tax Swap provides for a combination of lowering the sales and use tax rate applicable to sales of motor vehicle fuel, excluding aviation gasoline, and simultaneously raising the state excise motor vehicle fuel tax, effective July 1, 2010.
Additionally, the Fuel Tax Swap raises the sales tax rate applicable to sales of diesel fuel and simultaneously lowers the state excise tax on diesel fuel, effective July 1, 2011.
The BOE is required to adjust the excise tax rates for both motor vehicle fuel and diesel fuel annually so that the total amount of tax revenue generated is equal to what would have been generated had the sales and use tax and excise tax rates remained unchanged.