Highway Trust Fund

The Highway Trust Fund is a transportation fund in the United States which receives money from a federal fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel fuel and related excise taxes. It currently has two accounts, the Highway Account which funds road construction and other surface transportation projects, and a smaller 'Mass Transit Account' which supports mass transit. Separate from the Highway Trust Fund is the 'Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund', which receives an additional 0.1 cents per gallon on gasoline and diesel, making the total amount of tax collected 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel fuel. The Highway Trust Fund was established in 1956 to finance the United States Interstate Highway System and certain other roads. The Mass Transit Fund was created in 1982. The federal tax on motor fuels yielded $28.2 billion in 2006.

Prior to the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 and the establishment of the Highway Trust Fund, roads were financed directly from the General Fund of the United States Department of the Treasury. The 1956 Act directed federal fuel tax to the fund to be used exclusively for highway construction and maintenance. The Highway Revenue Act mandated a tax of three cents per gallon. The original Highway Revenue Act was set to expire at the end of fiscal year 1972. In the 1950s the gas tax was increased to four cents. The 1982 Surface Transportation Assistance Act, approved by President Ronald Reagan in January 1983, increased the tax to nine cents with one cent going into a new Mass Transit Account to support public transport. In 1990 the gas tax was increased by President George H. W. Bush with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 to 14 cents—with 2.5 cents of the increase going to the Highway Fund and the other 2.5 cents going towards deficit reduction. In 1993 President Clinton increased the gas tax to 18.4 cents with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 with all of the increase going towards deficit reduction. The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 redirected the 1993 increase to the Fund.

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