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And it still doesn't.Note that the countries with the highest taxes on fuel are those which historically had negligable oil reserves. Very early on in the Automobile Age it was realized that the cost of imported fuel could be a seriously destabilizing force, as large imports of fuel would tend to drain an economy of foreign exchange (gold, in those days). A regime of heavy taxation was put into place to limit demand and manage this drain of the economy. Such taxation never took hold here in the 'States because we were at the time the world's great exporter or oil products, and this heavy taxation would have made no sense.