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GPS-Based System For Driving Tax Being Field Tested
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, since gas consumption is going down and fuel efficient cars are becoming more popular, the government is looking into a new form of taxation to create revenue for transportation projects. This new system is a 'by-the-mile tax,' requiring GPS in cars so it can track the mileage. Once a month, the data gets uploaded to a billing center and you are conveniently charged for how much you drove. 'A federal commission, after a two-year study, concluded earlier this year that the road tax was the "best path forward" to keep revenues flowing to highway and transportation projects, and could be an important new tool to help manage traffic and relieve congestion. ... The commission pegged 2020 as the year for the federal fuel tax, currently 18.5 cents a gallon, to be phased out and replaced by a road tax. One estimate of a road tax that would cover the current federal and state fuel taxes is 1 to 2 cents per mile for cars and light trucks.'"
It seems to me like GPS provides other features than mileage tracking which the government could use.
If we are only concerned about tracking the mileage, there is already nice tool that does just this, couldn't it be used to also display how much it costs us in real time ? ;-)))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taximeter
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
This is great, especially as there is no way to abuse this.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If we end up with GPS systems in every car by 2020, I'd be interested how quickly the systems are used to also track your speed whenever they want to know.
They could just check the odometer during emissions checking.
Plus, if they go through with something like this, then they'd better eliminate the fuel taxes. (fat chance, I know)
GPS would be infinitely useful for governments. In addition to tracking mileage they can automatically charge tolls and even issue speeding tickets.
Why not just continue to raise the fuel taxes to generate revenue? That would serve to continue to reduce fuel consumption which would be a good thing.
Here I was just wondering what kind of a job I'd need to have in order to need one of these: http://dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.8758 $33 for a GPS blocker/jammer seems like it'd be a lot cheaper than paying tolls.
put the what in the where?
We don't do shit to repair the roads as it is! If this was put into place we'd find a way to further screw over our highways. Some of these potholes are big enough the only way we get them filled is to hold a funeral in one.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
They could just tax gasoline more. You know, the driving-related thing that they already tax. That has the side benefit of helping to cut down on pollution more than a flat per-mile tax, too.
There's another really nice tool that has the advantage that EVERY car already has one: Odometer
So who gets the money from that?
Currently if I am driving in a state the state usually gets some percentage of the gas tax.
If you are just checking the odometer, my home state gets all the money even if I travel out of state often?
I don't like the GPS idea one bit, I'm just saying checking the odometer does not solve the problem.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
See, the people will revolt if we suddenly double or triple the gas tax, which is 18.5 cents a gallon.
But, since we're going to mandate that all cars get 35 miles per gallon, and then we charge 1 to 2 cents (and it'll be two cents, if not four by the time it gets passed), then that means we've effectively upped the gas tax to between 35 and 70 cents a gallon (or $1.40 by four cents a mile). And the great part is that, just like income tax, they won't see the per gallon increase, they just get a bill at the end of the month that they have to pay.
Way to double, triple, or more the gas tax without looking like it.
Also, by the law of unintended consequences, by removing the tax from the gas, it makes it more cost effective to buy an older, cheaper gas guzzler, than a new, expensive, hybrid car. Thanks for destroying the environment, morons.
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We are coming up with all sorts of expensive plans to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the consumption of foreign oil, so why are we also trying to come up with a way to reduce the incentive to get a more fuel efficient car? Instead we should be massively increasing the tax on gasoline and possibly offering a flat rebate to counteract the regressive nature of use based taxes. That way tax revenue would keep up with decreasing demand and we would actually be naturally moving the market towards our long term goals.
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GPS can also be fairly easily jammed. In a number of areas (particularly with cheaper devices), it's very difficult to get reliable GPS signals, so blocking reception wouldn't be all that suspicious.
Yes we can!
We fight this kind of crap every year in California. People insist that hybrid cars are screwing us out of fuel taxes and are unfairly using the road. Well if it's so unfair maybe we should quit giving them a tax credit and put that money into the road budget instead. When everyone use hybrids we should raid the fuel tax to compensate. It's pretty simple, and doesn't require the government to contract an agency to build a $500 secured GPS unit to stick in every car.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Like it or not, a direct result of higher fuel prices is a drop is demand. Regardless of your views on oil production/drilling/exploration, it seems like it would be in everyone's best interest to use less fuel.
There was once--many years ago--talk of taxing motor fuel to reduce consumption. While I never personally agreed with the proposal, the idea of removing taxes from gasoline (which would make it appear cheaper to consumers) seems like a step in the wrong direction.
I wonder who is advising the "federal commission" on the options available to them? Why on earth would they decide a massive new taxation infrastructure was the "best path forward" unless they were being advised by someone who would benefit in some way from the massive purchase of new GPS tracking equipment?
Call me a curmudgeon, but I'd really like to know...
You have the right to remain silent. If you don't, anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.
I work for the DoD. There are those of us that work on "black" projects that have covert everything, including travel. It would be absolutely intolerable to have a record of where a car has been, either personal or rental, for an enemy agent to exploit. If there's a meeting of folks hammering out the requirements for a new fighter jet or littoral cruiser, who goes to the meeting, where the meeting was, what time the meeting was, etc. are all way too valuable to be recorded.
No, this idea is a non-starter for National security reasons. We won't even talk about organized crime getting ahold of it in order to track likely kidnap candidates' usual movements.
So I guess they will have exemptions for older cars, cars that have value in original condition and adding/changing something will reduce value, etc.
They're politicians, they don't care a whit about you or your car. They care about getting reelected and getting more of your money to spend.
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Something that might get more Americans to ride bicycles.
"Technology.....the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it." Max Firsch
Not likely. These are the same fascists who are pushing through a bill that would require you to make your old home "green" before you could sell it.
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Side effect: it becomes cheaper to drive a gas guzzler, and more expensive to drive an economy engine:
At current gas tax rates, that trip would cost my truck somewhere around $60 in existing gas taxes.
Existing gas tax would be about $10 in a fuel-efficient car.
Small fuel-efficient cars tend to be driven by lower-income people, who will therefore be hardest hit by this as their economy cars will pay a disproportionate amount of tax, based on per mile rather than per gallon.
So -- this is a regressive tax.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
This concept stinks like crude oil. Probably because it's heavily supported by the oil industry.
A 'miles driven' tax is exactly the kind of problem that allows people to completely externalize a lot of the public the cost of their fuel-inefficient vehicles (pollution, dependence on foreign oil, etc). We need to force people to pay those costs, in order to provide a disincentive to buying inefficient vehicles.
If we're going to switch to a miles-driven tax instead of a gas tax, then let's put a surchage tax on the purchase of inefficient vehicles. Let's make it $100 per rated mpg under 50.
Here's the math:
Say a pickup truck gets 20 mpg (generous), and will be driven for only 100,000 miles over its life. That's 5,000 gallons of fuel -- at federal excise rate of 18.4 cents/gal, that's $920 in gas taxes over the life of the vehicle.
Now look at a truck that gets 15 mpg. Fuel taxes over the life of the vehicle are $1380 (again, assuming only 100k miles driven).
A miles-driven tax, where both trucks pay the same amount, completely removes a big incentive to purchasing a fuel-efficient vehicle. And given that the low mpg rating is typical of heavier vehicles that cause more road wear-and-tear, it's only fair that they pay higher taxes.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
There is no way in hell that the government will remove any gas taxes, they will just add the per mile tax.
WRONG. I think you meant to do cents per mile, not mile per cents. 18.5/30 = .61666 cents.
Anybody who is getting better than 18.5 miles per gallon will LOSE money if this happens.
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There'd probably be a minor resurgence in the odometer-resetting industry, but fact is most people won't bother. Tying it to your annual vehicle licensing sounds good otherwise... until I had this thought:
When I buy gas with cash, I am absolutely anonymous. It doesn't matter if I drive 10 miles or 10,000 miles in a week. No one can know anything about my driving habits.
Now, recall that it is already commonly considered 'evidence of drug trafficking' if you are caught carrying a large amount of cash. What if 'driving a lot of miles' began garnering similar suspicions? I see the next step as confiscating cars (just as they presently do cash) without a hint of due process, just because your odometer mileage was outside of the norm.
"You drove 5,000 miles a week? Must have been running drugs. No one drives that far every week for any legitimate purpose."
It could go both ways, too.... for people like myself who drive very little (about 3,000 miles a year) -- that is ALSO suspicious: "No one who lives near [insert long-commute city here] drives so few miles, you must be getting your odometer reset!!"
So while it's an improvement over the GPS's invasive tracking, there are still problems that can impinge upon our freedoms, by encouraging scrutiny from looking-for-trouble Big Brother types.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
What it could be used for though, would be in investigations and criminal cases where the state might be interested. For example, we could have figured out Sanford was having an affair much sooner if we'd had GPS tracking on him all the time. And you know it's only a matter of time before law enforcement starts watching the GPS data for patterns and flagging any deviation from daily patterns as suspicious and worthy of investigation.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yeah you're right. The gubmint should just stop building and maintaining roads. Let them all fall apart and we can just switch to commuting on mountain bikes.
Lets see:
-Doubtless the system will be abused, all systems are. The question is will it be abused more than the benefit it provides. My feeling is that it would not provide the benefit expected.
-Tax Money never goes where I hope it will, the US government spends trillions of dollars maintaining a military killing people in far flung lands. I didn't sign up for that.
-If you can't afford quadrupling $0.005/Per Mile tax, you can't afford to drive.
-I don't give a fuck if you "feel the need to drive 'excessively'". I also don't give a fuck if you can't afford drive as much as you would like. Go get a job... or bike.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I dunno. For someone like me, who doesn't use highways very often, it would be nice to be relieved of a tax burden and have it put back on the people who actually benefit from the highway system.
Right... because no one uses the highway to deliver your packages or goods to the stores from which you purchase things... so none of those prices will go up, either.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
They told me that if I voted for McCain the government would end up tracking my every move. And they were right!
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
..for others, a lot of off the public road driving occurs. I've driven my truck six times in the past three days, all of it is on private property, and this farm at 800 acres is tiny compared to some ranches out west or for guys who go deep into the forests for logging, etc. They'll rack up tank after tank of fuel and hardly go on a publicly maintained road.
Anyway, IMO, this is more about people tracking then revenue. The gas tax is supposed to be wear and tear related for road maintenance, and for that it works. We have less revenue from better mileage cars, and also folks just driving less, and one of the reasons there is that they are lighter, and thus, less maintenance is required, less wear and tear. Want an alternative for this? Ban commodities flipping, it's just as harmful and stupid as real erstate bubble building flipping, make the end user who buys this oil on contract actually take delivery of petroleum and *do something* with it, like finish refining it and so on. A stat I read recently (sorry, no link handy) said a barrel of oil changes hands on average 27 times on paper before delivery! If we banned that speculation flipping and middleman skimming and price gouging, we could have a larger fuel tax by the gallon at the pump, they'd get all the road maintenance revenue they would need, and it would still be cheaper at the pump for the end user.
This GPS tracking you nonsense is more big brother action, and obviously so if you stop and look at the larger picture, same as all the other tagging, rfid, tracking, cameras, database crap they are instituting. This is the new technofuedalist elite aristocrats maintaining their herds of subjects/serfs. Really, just extrapolate it out. It is SO far beyond what was considered harmful/heinous back when I was a kid it ain't funny now. From my POV as a neogeezer we are well past the halfway point to the brave new world, well past it. They are already doing stuff I was taught was only done in dire dictatorial regimes, no knock raids and door kicking, random checkpoints, secret enemies of the state lists, etc.
Now look forward just twenty more years if this keeps up at this rate. They'll have an entire generation well into adulthood with kids of their own who have never ever been in a situation where they weren't monitored, had to go through random checkpoints, been scanned, tagged, DNA registered, fingerprinted, stamped, spindled folded and mutilated by the state, all of the above and more, everything about them cataloged in databases, and they will consider that "normal". Poof, a full master/slave society when the slaves don't even see they are slaves, and if pointed out to them will deny it because of the mass conditioning since birth. The chains will be invisible to them, they will love big brother. It's damn close now, the poor kids in the public schools today are undergoing mass indoctrination and cultural brainwashing to an extreme.
If they tried to pull this stuff all at once, they might see an actual righteous revolt, a little bit at a time, spread out over the years..nothing, they win. And the whole time it is happening, apologists will keep saying it isn't that bad, every single step forward to that sort of society "well, it isn't that bad, look at north korea!!'.
That's how they get away with it. Look at the acceptance of the "no fly" enemies of the state list now. Like supposedly a million people and counting. No public accusation in the normal courts system, just you find out you are on some list if you go to board a plane..because some faceless drone decided you should be on it, or a computer program did it..or something. And they get cut out of the line, and everyone around them looks away and is thankful it isn't them...Scared into docile obedience, state sponsored terrorized into acceptance. They won't even say how it works. I mean, how bad does it have to get before people really notice this stuff? Does anyone REALLY think there are a million "terrorists" inside the US? Where are the attacks? If there really are, where are the arrests and charges and trials? Nope, that's the misdirection, this is just a list for eventual herd culling. Tracking you in your ride is all that is about, the revenue stuff is BS.
My guess is it's the rich idiots driving 10 mpg SUVs that think global warming is a myth pushing for this. Odd, the SUV owners all whine "but I need a big car to haul a bunch of people" but I rarely see one of these monstrosities with more than one person in it.
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I'll second this as I drove a truck and was an Owner-Operator for a while - had to get away from the keyboard. It didn't work.
Every mile driven through every state has to be reported to that state, and the taxes paid, on a monthly basis. You pay taxes at the pump, and those taxes are applied to the miles you travel on state roads. It doesn't matter if it's a highway or not - they assume that if you're driving in the state, it's a taxable highway, because 53' trailers aren't legal on many small roads and city streets. And what's a few cents for local travel? You do get a refund of taxes paid if the balance is positive, though. Each state has different taxes, though, so keeping track of it can be a pain - but if you do it right, and fuel in a high-tax state near the state line but put most of you miles in low tax states, you end up with a net positive at the end of the month - so it's more convenient.
Some states, most notably New York, charge both a road tax and a fuel tax. No road tax for toll roads - in theory, see the above for assumptions - but a fuel tax is still required. Double taxation? But wait, there's more!
There's also the Federal Heavy Vehicle Use Tax (HVUT). That's a $550/yr tax for road funding. Per vehicle. Even if it never sees the interstate.
There's also the 13% Federal Excise Tax for every purchase of a heavy truck or equipment for that truck - including an APU, for instance, which reduces diesel consumption and emissions by eliminating idling. That tax also is allocated to the highway department.
Toll roads charge per axle - so a tractor-trailer will pay 2.5 times more than a car to use the road. But with all this funding coming in, why would you need a toll road?
Truck driver, plumber, Linux systems engineer.
..GPS tracking by the government shows how far apart we are just in general principles as per my above first reply about how far we are into a full police state and how people have been slowly conditioned to accept it and not even see it. I remember saying the same thing about electronic computerized voting way back here before it even started, when it was a lot more popular in concept because it was "computerized', high tech, so it just must be mo' bettah. I called shenanigans then as well, because I could see the obvious high level abuse potential and how they could hack elections easier. And most likely, they have, given all the evidence that has come out since the 2000 elections to today.
Same deal here, just part of their NWO stew of crap they keep throwing at the people and making "law". From my POV, just at a very basic and important level, the GPS tracking itself is an outright outrageous *abuse*, let alone *charging* you cash money for this dubious privilege.
And like I said, it has nothing to do with revenue, that's the misdirection part, the con they are using to push this. I already outlined a completely viable alternative for both increasing road maintenance revenue, plus reducing the cost of fuel to the driver, without any obnoxious big brother tracking required.
We'll have to more or less agree to disagree on at least a few points here. I'm just lucky enough to remember living when such things would have been almost automatically vilified and would have stood no chance in hell of being made "law"..now..looks like the goons are winning "hearts and minds". Sadly.
And I will keep pointing out when that is happening, or when it looks to happen, like with this issue. Because I actually care about old fashioned personal freedoms and a strictly regulated and controlled government. An all powerful government with a strictly controlled population is not the original design here.
Heh, I am in farming, I can recognize easily when a farmer is controlling his herd, I do it daily, what needs to happen. You have to do surveillance, control, and watch your fences. Look around at government now, what do you see? What I see has way too many parallels for complacency or for me to accept it is anything other than what it looks like, using occam's razor.