Reply #7: We do that

[magellan]

...with our business in the UK. We're responsible for collecting the VAT (17.5%) from our customers and turning it over to the gov't every quarter. Kinda sucky, but you just have to remember it's not income, it's not yours, so it goes into a separate account and when time comes off with it to where it belongs. So I have zero sympathy for the oil companies' argument. If that's the deal with the 18 cents/gallon then they aren't paying tax, they're receivers of tax for the gov't.

But that headache will go away if the Repubs privatize this country's infrastructure, as they're attempting to do. McCain is transparent as glass on this. We'll be screwed two ways if he "does away with" the gas tax, by the oil companies and by the inevitable increase the gov't will introduce elsewhere to pay private firms to fix our roads.