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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
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This is great, especially as there is no way to abuse this.
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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?
Most people have an EZ-pass equivalent in their car. We also have license plate reading cameras. Ticketing virtually all speeders, at least on highways, is possible now. They will never, ever do this because if you ticket all speeders, no one will speed. They will lose millions of dollars in fines, on top of creating massive anger and traffic clogs that would result in the speed limit being raised to the speed people actually go anyway.
So it's much too good an idea and will never be done.
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
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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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.
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
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.
Yes we can!
2 year commission. Just concluded.. Hmm...
Think about it.
Then stfu.
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?
..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.