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Oregon Governor Proposes Vehicle Mileage Tax
tiedyejeremy writes "As covered by the Crosscut Blog, the Governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, is proposing a change in the funding of the Oregonian transportation system that drops gasoline taxes and, by way of GPS tracking, taxes the number of miles driven, to the tune of 1.2 cents per mile. The reason for the proposed change is that lower fuel consumption via fuel efficiency will leave the system underfunded. The concerns involve government tracking of the movements of vehicles within the state, though this has been denied by ODOT official, James Whitty. I'm wondering how this affects people using the Interstate System and private roads, and if the outputs can or will be used by law enforcement to check alibis."
It's either/or: If the gas pump detects your GPS computer, it charges you $.012/mile. Otherwise it charges you $.25/gallon. Or thereabouts, I haven't heard what the new gas tax portion is going to be.
Oh, and also it's only on NEW cars- old cars are grandfathered into the gas tax.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You really think an odometer is harder to tamper with than a GPS tracking unit?
Ignoring direct alteration of tracking data stored on media that you have physical access to -- which is well within the realm of possibility for anyone with a JTAG interface (and quite probably anyone with a serial interface) -- you could simply add a local GPS simulator to your vehicle so the government-mandated unit always got radio signals telling it the car was sitting in your driveway. Such hacking is totally wireless -- it requires no electrical interface to the GPS system -- so it could be added/removed or activated/deactivated even by a brain-dead tax-dodger.
Free health care and you pay less in taxes than Americans. Most Americans insist that isn't true, and it's not if you make over a million a year.
There may be a reason that most Americans insist this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_of_Europe
Not only is the income tax higher - often considerably - but on top of that there's that lovely VAT.
But hey, enjoy your fantasies.
First, let me tell you my qualification to discuss Oregon taxes. I lived there for 12 years, and worked there as an out of stater from Washington for 8.
Currently, something like 45 states have a sales tax. Oregonians have rejected a sales tax for a variety of reasons, one of which being that they think the income tax won't go away entirely and they will just get double taxed.
Also, rich people certainly pay more in absolute dollars per capita under an income tax but it's not linear. Higher bracket households have disproportionately more tax deductions than lower income households and don't pay the same percentages.
Sales tax doesn't entirely fix this disparity since higher income households are the most likely to make major purchases from out of state due to availability of the types of goods they often buy.
One serious annoyance for me was that I worked about 3 miles into Oregon while living in Washington and had to pay OR state income tax while receiving no tangible benefits for this tax. I used about 6 miles of road per day, that's it. And to top it off, my state income tax didn't even give me the right to vote on HOW they spend my money.
So, back to your question. Sales tax is generally favorable to income tax in my opinion. I don't think it will ever work for Oregon though. They depend on workers from southern Washington to prop up their income tax and that would disappear if they switch to a sales tax. Also, literally billions of dollars annually are pumped into the Portland metro area by shoppers from WA state looking to avoid their own sales tax.
Yes, its illegal but it happens every day.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.