Gas Tax Set To Go Up As Prices Continue To Fall

North Carolina drivers will see something next month that they haven't seen in a while – a slight uptick in gas prices.

And this time it's not an increase in fuel that will be driving it. The Department of Revenue announced Monday that the state's gas tax will go up a penny in January.

The motor fuels tax is adjusted twice a year. The price of gas started plummeting in August and is now at a five-year low. Tiffany Wright, a spokeswoman for AAA of the Carolinas, says on average prices across the state haven't gone up in more than two months, which may make this increase easier for consumers to accept.

“It really is a great time to be filling up in North Carolina. I can't get over the fact that we're paying 70 cents less than we were a year ago at this time,” she says.

The gas tax is going from 36.5 to 37.5 cents per gallon. That's as high as it can go under a cap passed by legislators in 2013. That cap is set to expire at the end of June.