What to know why gas is $4.15 a gallon---and who is making the money

Here is the breakdown of the cost of gas we pay at the pump here on St Croix:

3.43 rack rate posted this week, includes .14 cent tax
.08 per gallon for delivery from rack to independent gas station(in states its .05 average per gallon for trucking delivery)
.21 gross receipt tax paid by gas station to VI government, gross receipt tax is 5% of sale, so if gas per gallon is now for $4.15, the gas station owner has to pay VI government .21 cent if the gas is selling for over $4,oo a gallon(ie .05 per every dollar)

$3.72 is the gas station operator cost per , this week rack rate has been the same for the last three weeks, so most of the gas in the tanks are the rack rate of $3.43

$4.15 is common gas price for regular this week

Profit for gas station $4.15 minus 3.72 ============= .43 gallon

However, you must factor in credit card use, Basically, figure an average of .02 per dollar , so gas selling for $4.15 a gallon you have to add another .08 cent per gallon, profit is reduced to .35 a gallon(.43 minus .08)

I worked in accounting for the Northeast division of Gulf, if we made .11 cents a gallon profit after all expenses, we were very profitable, however, the norm was to make .07 a gallon at the gas station.

Yes, profit margin is high for gas station owners.

However, we must blame our government for most of the high cost of gas(.14 tax plus .20 gross receipt tax----government gets .34 a gallon from us .

Bottom line, get used to almost 5.00 a gallon, this is the price of gas on most of the islands in the Carribean. And I predict one major gas producer will be the provider of all the gas to the gas stations------and in 5 years, all the stations will be owned by one company, like many of the other islands who dont have enough in volume to have competition(ie Puerto Rico prices are cheaper due to the volume of sales and competetion)