SPRINGFIELD – Gasoline retailers in Illinois are opposing a proposal to increase the state’s motor fuel tax, the Northwest Herald reports.

Proposed by the Transportation for Illinois Coalition as a means to fund a statewide road-building program, the tax hike is ill timed, store operators maintain.

“This tax, as a retailer, would be pushed to the consumer. We as retailers live in penny profits and cannot afford to absorb this tax,” said Amy Chronister Ridley, vice president of Chronister Oil Company, which operates Qik-n-EZ convenience stores. Ridley appeared with other owners and the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association at a press conference earlier this week.

The coalition proposed the tax hike earlier this month: a 4-cent increase on gasoline and a 7-cent hike on diesel fuel, along with increasing vehicle registration fees and taxes on services such as auto work and car washes. The proposal also ends the ethanol credit for gasoline.

“We need to put the brakes on any type of plan to raise the motor fuel tax. Drivers deserve a break, and business owners have suffered enough in recent years,” said Bill Fleischli, vice president of the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association.

Fleischli said lawmakers should instead stop diverting money allocated for maintaining roads and bridges into other areas of the budget.