Filling up your fuel tank in Nova Scotia is more than a pit stop. It’s a harsh reminder that gas taxes are draining your wallet.

Halifax gas prices are up more than 40 cents a litre from beginning of March.

That’s why it’s time for Premier Tim Houston to act and cut provincial gas taxes.

About 25 per cent of the price you pay at the pump today is tax.

At 48 cents per litre, filling a sedan with a 64-litre tank costs more than $30 in gas taxes alone.

Now imagine being one of the many Nova Scotians who rely on a pickup truck for work or shuttle kids to hockey in a minivan. The tax burden only gets heavier, making every trip to the pump more painful.

Here’s the breakdown:

First, Ottawa charges you a federal gas tax at 10 cents per litre.

Secondly, the provincial government charges its own tax at 15.5 cents per litre.

Lastly, when you think it couldn’t get any worse, there’s the tax-on-tax.

Here’s how it hits you. Instead of applying the harmonized sales tax to the base price of gasoline, the government charges the HST on top of the price after other taxes have already been added.

This sneaky, underhanded method allows for the government to grab even more of your hard-earned money by making you pay tax on the tax you’ve already paid.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In neighbouring Newfoundland and Labrador, then-premier Andrew Furey cut the provincial gas tax by 7.5 cents per litre in June 2022.

What started as a temporary measure was extended every year for the rest of Furey’s term.

And after the Progressive Conservatives won last fall, Premier Tony Wakeham’s government recently passed legislation making the cut permanent.

That means Newfoundlanders and Labradorians save more than $30 million annually in gas taxes over the last four years and will keep saving for years to come.

Nova Scotia should follow suit.

And the Houston government can afford it by cutting waste, controlling spending and ending its habit of making taxpayers pay for government’s lack of discipline.

First, the province should stop handing out corporate welfare. Nova Scotia taxpayers are on the hook for more than $377 million annually in business subsidies. That money should go toward broad-based tax relief, not politically favoured deals.

Second, the government should bring non-health spending back to 2022 levels. That would save about $848 million in a single year while protecting the government’s stated priority of improving health care.

Third, the province should tackle bloated government compensation costs. Salaries and wages are the largest line item in the budget. Research shows government employees in Canada earn an 8.5 per cent wage premium over private-sector workers. Bringing compensation more in line with the private sector through attrition and reform could save another $544 million.

If government stopped wasting your money, it could afford to give you a break at the pumps without sacrificing essential services.

And gas taxes don’t just hurt at the pump.

Everything in the grocery store got there on a truck. Fuel taxes are baked into the cost of everything, especially in rural and remote parts of the province. Businesses facing higher fuel costs pass them on in the price of everything from bananas to plywood.

That’s why it’s time for Nova Scotia to provide meaningful relief at the gas pump.

Houston has a clear path forward: cut the waste, slash the gas tax and help Nova Scotians keep more of their hard-earned money.