This is outrageous!
Sorry but enviro-freaks are not above the law. they use the highways so they need to pay the taxes that help maintain them the same as the rest of us do.
It’s perfectly ironic for it explains in a single instance the gulf between the people and the state; whenever a professional polition or a crusader tells you that his mission is to help, serve and protect you, you now know that his true purpose is to control you and those like you.
This is not outrageous at all. In fact, this makes perfect sense.
Motor fuels are taxed in order to pay for the cost of roads. By taxing fuels, the state is in effect taxing the use of the road. This is a very good and non-distorting tax. The people who use the roads pay for the roads.
If you brew your own fuel and avoid the tax, you are using the roads without paying for the roads. Instead, your portion of the costs are shifted to other users. Your road use is, in effect, subsidized by everybody else who buys conventional fuel.
I am against taxes in general. I want them to be as small and non-distorting as possible. But some taxes make more sense than others. The motor fuel tax is a sensible tax, because it offsets the societal cost of the consumption of the motor fuels. There is no reason to subsidize somebody who chooses to use unconventional fuels.
It would seem to me that since the state taxes fuel to be sold by gasoline retailers, they would have no legal recourse to levy taxes on fuel you make yourself. The law needs to be checked. Also, did this man not pay local and state sales tax on the cooking oil he purchased? Just some thoughts here.