Mileage Tax to Replace Gas Tax ?

ARFlyer

ARFlyer

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http://abc7.com/news/ca-considers-replacing-gas-tax-with-mileage-fees/1167775/

Doesn't sound like to bad of an idea. Tax people for usage instead of a bias gas tax. With more and more hybrids and electric vehicles on the road how else are we suppose to pay to maintain the roads?

I'm speaking from a state that has horrible roads because of the asinine way we pay for and maintain them.

Obviously it will require a secure way of reporting your mileage to the state. Maybe a system that connects to your internet when parked that downloads the daily total. GPS would work but it's also inaccurate in a range of environments.
 
If we strip the tax out of gas then gas would go so cheap that it'd likely kill electric cars.
 
Captain said:
If we strip the tax out of gas then gas would go so cheap that it'd likely kill electric cars.
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Then how do you pay for the roads? Just a flax tax of lets say $100 a year to every car owner?

Plus we need to get away from fossil fuel usage. Yes, I know currently more pollution is created to charge said electric cars then to just have fuel burning ones. But most of those reasons can easily be fixed.
 
I'm sure the most expensive way possible will be used to collect mileage data to impose taxes. The stupid part will be, when a guy registers their vehicle out of state from where they drive the most, who's gonna get the taxes?
 
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bnt83 said:
I'm sure the most expensive way possible will be used to collect mileage data to impose taxes.
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Oregon only charges 1.5c per mile in their trial program. Doesn't seem that bad. If you drive 20,000 miles a year that's only $300 a year in tax.

bnt83 said:
The stupid part will be, when a guy register's their vehicle out of state where they are most of the time, who's gonna get the taxes?
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Oregon solves this by using the GPS data to only charge based on the region your located. That tax is then sent to the said region.
 
ARFlyer said:
Oregon only charges 1.5c per mile in their trial program. Doesn't seem that bad. If you drive 20,000 miles a year that's only $300 a year in tax.



Oregon solves this by using the GPS data to only charge based on the region your located. That tax is then sent to the said region.
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No GPS in the car....

Remove GPS from car then drive no charge?
 
I would not submit to letting my vehicle mileage be downloaded and handed to the government.

But I would unhook my speedometer just to screw with the system. :yes:

This is a dumb idea, horrificly so. If you're not getting enough revenue from gas tax, get the revenue elsewhere or raise the tax. Collecting extra tax from individuals on a per-use basis will be horribly inefficient.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I would not submit to letting my vehicle mileage be downloaded and handed to the government.

But I would unhook my speedometer just to screw with the system. :yes:

This is a dumb idea, horrificly so. If you're not getting enough revenue from gas tax, get the revenue elsewhere or raise the tax. Collecting extra tax from individuals on a per-use basis will be horribly inefficient.
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With all the cameras up nowadays big brother probably already has a formula they can punch your recorded habits into to compute an estimate.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
This is a dumb idea, horrificly so. If you're not getting enough revenue from gas tax, get the revenue elsewhere or raise the tax. Collecting extra tax from individuals on a per-use basis will be horribly inefficient.
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Our state governor released a plan to use our General Fund surplus to increase our highway funds. In drier years they will use funds from other vehicle/fuel related taxes. In all they manged 40mil a year without raising one tax.
 
bnt83 said:
With all the cameras up nowadays big brother probably already has a formula they can punch your recorded habits into to compute an estimate.
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They all ready know my habits via GPS programs on my phone. My map program is crowd sourced and I have a cellular program collecting cell data for a data warehousing firm.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I would not submit to letting my vehicle mileage be downloaded and handed to the government.

But I would unhook my speedometer just to screw with the system. :yes:

This is a dumb idea, horrificly so. If you're not getting enough revenue from gas tax, get the revenue elsewhere or raise the tax. Collecting extra tax from individuals on a per-use basis will be horribly inefficient.
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I agree. Plus it would discourage development of more fuel-efficient cars, punish rural people, and require that payment methods for tens of millions of people be stored on government servers, which would become juicy targets for hackers.

The fuel tax works fine. If it's no longer enough to pay for the roads, then raise it. But also make sure that that's where it goes. If all the tolls, motor vehicle surcharges, fees, and fuel taxes in New York actually went to maintain the roads, we'd have the best roads in the world.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
I agree. Plus it would discourage development of more fuel-efficient cars
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Please tell me your not against more fuel-efficient cars? :mad2:

If so your like my grandparents who think digging a giant hole, dumping their toxic trash and burning it is THEIR RIGHT!
 
You are living in a fantasy world if you think in this country that an existing tax would go away in place of a new one. Think like a politician, if one is good two must be better especially when it comes to taxes.
 
Basing the taxation on fuel used provides an incentive for conservation. If they need more money for roads, I think they should index the fuel tax to inflation. An alternative would be to make it a percentage of price paid, instead of a fixed number of cents per gallon. That would be an approximation, but it would probably average out OK in the long run.
 
ARFlyer said:
Please tell me your not against more fuel-efficient cars? :mad2:

If so your like my grandparents who think digging a giant hole, dumping their toxic trash and burning it is THEIR RIGHT!
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I think he means the mileage tax would discourage development of fuel-efficient cars...

Keeping the fuel tax and raising it if there are not enough funds would encourage people to buy fuel-efficient and alternative energy cars.
 
I think we should just mail in all of our money. When the government is done spending all they want, they could mail the remainder back to us in a proportionate amount.
 
bnt83 said:
With all the cameras up nowadays big brother probably already has a formula they can punch your recorded habits into to compute an estimate.
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There's no camera in my farmland where I live.

Point is, the fuel tax is efficient at doing the job. I think it's appropriate, and don't mind it going up if needed for roads.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
There's no camera in my farmland where I live.

Point is, the fuel tax is efficient at doing the job. I think it's appropriate, and don't mind it going up if needed for roads.
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Absolutely. The government is probably spending a pile of money just talking about an additional tax when they can just up the one in place and be done.

Seems like every quarter I read in the newspaper the city counsel here approval another $200k study for ___________. Right now they are blowing money on studies where they should build the next roundabout.
 
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I see another beurocracy in the making,will need another arm of the govt to monitor the mileage reporting.
 
How about just raising car registration fees?
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I would not submit to letting my vehicle mileage be downloaded and handed to the government.

But I would unhook my speedometer just to screw with the system. :yes:

This is a dumb idea, horrificly so. If you're not getting enough revenue from gas tax, get the revenue elsewhere or raise the tax. Collecting extra tax from individuals on a per-use basis will be horribly inefficient.
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Absolutely. That may just be the hill that I die on.
 
frfly172 said:
I see another beurocracy in the making,will need another arm of the govt to monitor the mileage reporting.
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They'll need a state offices bigger than the new Vikings stadium that was a massive expenditure of natural resources.
 
Everskyward said:
I think he means the mileage tax would discourage development of fuel-efficient cars...

Keeping the fuel tax and raising it if there are not enough funds would encourage people to buy fuel-efficient and alternative energy cars.
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Ah, I see. Make sense. For a second my blood pressure was rising!
 
Norman said:
Tax the damned heavy trucks according to the damage they do to the roads.
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How about taxing all the stuff that people can't live without that is delivered by truck?

WalMart is one of the largest trucking companies in the US. We only ship stuff by rail in bulk quantities between major centers. Once the stuff is off the rail it's in a big truck, headed for a Wally World near you. The same with every other product sold at retail in this country.

If Americans didn't demand mass quantities of stuff, available everywhere, at any time, we wouldn't have millions of big trucks on the roads.

Be careful what you wish for. :rolleyes:

Mark
 
Captain said:
If we strip the tax out of gas then gas would go so cheap that it'd likely kill electric cars.
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Even if gas was 10c per gallon, unless Chevron offers to run a gasoline line to my house, you still can't beat the convenience of charging at home.

I have 2 EV's and fully support mileage tax for purposes of road maintenance instead of gas tax. We pay a flat usage tax in Washington state for EV's, but a mileage tax would be more fair.


I do agree with Elon that all current subsidies should be dropped on both sides and both Gas and Electric generation sides should be priced to account for the currently unpriced externalities. Then let the market figure out which one wins. However, this has nothing to do with road usage, which should be based on how much of the road you actually use.
 
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Georgia implemented a tax on electric vehicles last year, it's $200. I am not sure if it's an annual tax or one time. We also dropped the state tax credit for electric cars. Mileage tax may be a supplement to the gas tax, but it will never replace it, way too hard to track and collect, especially from lower income folks. Can you imagine a guy living paycheck to paycheck having to come up with an extra $2-400 annually to pay for mileage? Gas tax is easy to collect and somewhat reflects road usage, more gas= more miles or more weight. It's not perfect, but I bet it averages out pretty close. A truck getting 20 MPG vs a small car getting 40 MPG would pay half the gas tax for the same mileage driven, but the truck weighs more and causes more wear on the roads. :D
 
Maybe a percentage of tire prices would be a reasonable proxy for road wear and tear.
 
They need to find a way to tax the electricity used to charge cars somehow segregated from the electricity used in the home otherwise.

That would solve the problem.
 
ARFlyer said:
That is a viable option. I think are registration fees are only $25 a year.
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Maybe in your state. Here it's about $90/car.... and as someone who owns several vehicles, two of which probably don't get driven 1,000 miles/year I wouldn't be too happy with that plan. You'll run into a lot of that, people have so many different situations and different states do things so much differently that any plan you come up with is going to screw over a bunch of people while giving a bunch of others a ridiculous break.

I'd probably do best with the milage plan and it seems like the fairest option but I don't really want a GPS tracking device in my car. I'd be OK with reporting odometer readings when I renew my sticker but I'm going to assume bureaucrats will never accept that because of the potential for fraud. If you're in a state with inspections I guess they could have the mechanic report it but a lot places in the US have no inspection whatsoever so... I dunno about all that.
 
N747JB said:
Mileage tax may be a supplement to the gas tax, but it will never replace it, way too hard to track and collect, especially from lower income folks.
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It's very hard to collect on a local level, but very easy to collect on a Federal level. Just enter your VIN numbers and mileage when you file your federal taxes each year.

If you drive into Canada or Mexico a lot, you can deduct your miles spent outside the country if you want.
 
Somedudeintn said:
What gave you that idea?
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Generally misinformation campaigns where people would take the worse-case source for electricity and compare it to the best-case usage for gas by comparing cars in different classes, and then ignore all of the pollution resulting from mining, refining and transporting gas.

At some point you can skew any number enough to make it seem credible.
 
Norman said:
Tax the damned heavy trucks according to the damage they do to the roads.
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This is why a the gas tax makes sense. Heavy vehicles cause more road wear, and use more fuel. Small, light cars do very little damage, use less fuel. Gas tax is a great way for everybody to pay for the road maintenance they cause.

Electric cars? Maybe meter in a tax at charging stations. The more electricity used, the more tax paid. Should make an even playing field.
 
Non Compos Mentis said:
Electric cars? Maybe meter in a tax at charging stations. The more electricity used, the more tax paid. Should make an even playing field.
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Won't help. 90 to 95% of charging is done at home. At least that's the stat for Tesla, not sure about other EV's like Leafs, but probably even more. Leaf's aren't exactly road-trip cars.

My Leaf charges from an ordinary 110V outlet, and my Tesla charges from a dryer outlet. There's nothing EV specific to either that you can tax.

You could of course install a device in that car to track the amount of charge it gets per year, but if you're going to do something in the car you may as well just tax the odometer reading.
 
Let's stop and think about this for a second. Let's say the average tank fillup for most people is about 15 gallons. Federal gas tax is $.184/gal = $2.76.

Here in IL, which has one of the higher gas taxes, there's another $.19/gallon = 2.85+2.

So on a 15 gallon tank I'm paying $5.61 in taxes. I mean.. it's not nothing but it's a pretty yawn inducing amount of money for me overall. If the state doubled that tax, I'd be up to $8.46 in taxes. I wouldn't like paying more obviously but the extra $3 or so certainly wouldn't make much difference to me. I seriously doubt $3 extra per fillup is big change for the average person either. I know when you're poor every $ counts but most of us probably only fill our tanks once a week for basic transportation anyway..... and with this the state would double their revenue on gas taxes.

I know for people who drive a lot of miles for a living this might not be the case but maybe you can deduct it later? There's no solution for increasing revenue that doesn't involve someone paying more obviously...

No politician dare suggest doing it though. The public is fixated on the price of gas at all times and any change that makes it more expensive is always bad. Doesn't matter if it's a very small amount out of their pocket, people are always outraged.
 
look at the bright side, maybe taxes will make cars too expensive to drive and general aviation will become more popular. :lol:
 
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