On March 12, Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law Act 2019-2 also known as the Rebuild Alabama Act which levies an additional tax on gasoline and undyed diesel that will take effect on Sunday.

Effective on Sunday, the gasoline and undyed diesel excise tax will increase 0.06 cents per gallon to .024 cents per gallon for gasoline and to 0.25 cents per gallon for undyed diesel.

On Oct. 1, 2020, an additional 0.02 will be added to gasoline tax and 0.02 cents will be added to the diesel tax.

This will repeat on Oct. 1, 2021, with the same amount for both taxes.

Then on Oct. 1, 2023 and on July 1 of every other year after that, the gasoline and undyed diesel tax rate will be adjusted by the percentage change in the yearly average of the National Highway Construction Cost Index and rounded to the nearest whole cent with the increase or decrease of the excise tax rate not exceeding 0.01 cent per gallon, according to the Alabama Department of Revenue.

While people usually automatically shut down the thought of taxes, think of what the good that will come from this money collected.

According to a handout distributed by Dallas County Probate Judge Jimmy Nunn to members in attendance at an April Rotary Club meeting, the Rebuild Alabama Act will generate $905,623 for Dallas County upon full implementation.

Counties are on track to receive 25 percent of the new revenues generated by the new tax and fees directly and can use those funds for preservation, improvement or maintenance of transportation infrastructure, matching funds for federal road or bridge projects, debt payments for road and bridge projects and joint projects with one or more adjoining counties, cities or a combination thereof.

In our county, one of the biggest problems that we face is the condition of our roads.

“For the general public, taxes is really a bad word. But if anyone has experience with our rural county roads, then they’re familiar with the horrible conditions they’re in and, without this, we simply can’t fix it,” said Dallas County Commissioner Roy Moore.

We need all the help we can get in order to fix our roads.

While we may feel the tax increase at the pumps, we will reap the benefits of it over the next few years and see improvements on our roadways.