Latest gas tax increase hits California drivers on July 1

LOS ANGELES (FOX 11) - You might want to set aside a few extra dollars in your piggy bank because your wallet is about to suffer at the gas pumps.

California's latest annual gas tax increase kicks in on July 1, 2019.

It will go from 41.7 cents to 47.3 cents -- that's a 5.6 cent increase per gallon of gas as the majority of Americans plan for a summer getaway, according to AAA. Road trips remain a top choice for many families this summer.

The California gas tax increase comes as the average gas prices across the country are down for the sixth straight week to $2.67 per gallon, according to GasBuddy data compiled from more than 10 million individual price reports covering 135,000 gas stations across the United States. Drivers are likely to see prices increase as the pump heading into the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

The state passed Senate Bill 1 in April 2017 under then Governor Jerry Brown. The bill aims to raise $54 billion over the next decade to fix roads, freeways and bridges. See where the money is going.

In the summer of 2017, drivers in California paid 29.7 cents in taxes for a gallon of gas but after SB-1's passing, that rate spiked up by 12 cents in November of that year, going from 29.7 to 41.7 cents for each gallon of gas.

There was an unsuccessful attempt to repeal the California gas tax in 2018 with Proposition 6, which failed with about 57% of voters against it.