People have been waking up to this during the current gas price crisis... governments say they're doing everything they can, but they can't do more, because of the global oil prices,...

...meanwhile more than half of the gas price goes to the government, and people are notcing.

How is a market price distortion (artificially lowering gas prices through tax cuts) supposed to solve the gas price crisis? You want people to use less gas, so there is more left over for the industries that actually need it. You don't want consumers to use subsidized gas wastefully.

You also want people to be able to get to work and not freeze to death in their apartments, and still be able to afford food after that.

It's not a gas crisis, there's enough gas, it's a politics crisis.

The idea of a federal gas tax holiday has apparently been floating around DC lately, but I'm pretty skeptical that they'll be able to return to full taxes without significant pushback.

In the US, the federal gas tax has been 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993.

If anything, they are losing money with inflation and the decreased demand that higher fuel prices will create.

This depends on the country.

In slovenia we had regulated gas prices until 2020 - https://www.gov.si/assets/ministrstva/MGRT/Dokumenti/DNT/cen... [docx]

If we look at the last price (top row), the price (without any taxes) was 0.395eur/l. Then they add (in column order) CO2 tax, "saving energy tax", excise duty ("trošarina"), "tax to help electricity production", and VAT (DDV), bringing the total price to 1.00eur. The total of taxes added is ~153% of the base price (0.395 without -> 1eur with tax).

States also charge tax on gas.

For example, California charges both $0.539 per gallon AND sales tax. The latter varies based on city/county/district and is charged on the "after per-gallon tax" price.

The total sales tax in San Jose is 9.375%, so $6.50 at the pump includes $0.557 in sales tax. (The "at the pump" price includes sales tax.)

That's a total of $1.096/g state and local for $6.50/g at the pump.

Add in the federal $0.184/g and the total tax is $1.28/g on $6.50/g gas in San Jose.

There may also be permit fees.