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Draft Proposal Would Create Agency To Tax Cars By the Mile
theodp writes "The Hill reports that the Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive. The plan is a part of the administration's 'Transportation Opportunities Act,' and calls for spending $200 million to implement a new Surface Transportation Revenue Alternatives Office tasked with creating a 'study framework that defines the functionality of a mileage-based user fee system and other systems.' The office would be required to consider four factors — the capability of states to enforce payment, the reliability of technology, administrative costs, and 'user acceptance' — in field trials slated to begin within four years at unspecified sites. Forbes suggests the so-called vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax should be called the Rube Goldberg Gas Tax, because while its objective is the same as the gas tax, the way it collects revenue is extremely complex, costly and cumbersome." The disclaimers are thick on the ground, though; note, this is an "early draft," not pending legislation.
This sounds very, very bad.
If federal gas tax is lifted.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
It will never pass the house.
“This is not an administration proposal," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said. "This is not a bill supported by the administration. This was an early working draft proposal that was never formally circulated within the administration, does not taken into account the advice of the president’s senior advisers, economic team or Cabinet officials, and does not represent the views of the president.”
Not quite the same as the summary...
How about you fix the tax loopholes, get rid of oil subsidies, and force the oil companies that for every cent above 2 dollars they charge per gallon, the US government gets 2 cents of it. Bet you it will make more than this plan and oil will miraculously go down to 2 dollars again!
What is the difference between this and the already-in-place fuel tax? The fuel tax is even better at metering costs to those that chew up roads (heavy vehicles). This sounds like a solution looking for a cause to me.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
It would destroy the trucking industry, would raise prices on everything, crush those in rural areas which are usually poor, push us back into a recession and even the few of our senators with a brain can figure this out and make sure it never happens.
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At least the gasoline taxes encourage driving more fuel-efficient vehicles. This is simply a regressive tax that discourages driving. I guess Standard Oil, Firestone and GM aren't behind this one.
Unless you're walking on unpaved dirt road, otherwise I would think you're inflicting minute damage to the pavement and thus be subjected to a use tax on the pavement.
Yeah, as if that makes a lot of sense. But alas we've seen things done by the government that made even less sense before...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Why would you want to tax vehicle miles instead of gas used? Taxing gas promotes fuel efficiency AND carpooling, public transit, living closer to work, etc. It amounts to the same thing, yet I get the distinct feeling the ONLY reason this proposal is being floated is because an actual gas tax is seen as politically untenable, despite being more effective, less onerous (would you rather an extra $5 each time you fill up or pay $250 at the end of the year?), and proven to be effective in dozens of other nations with vastly more efficient vehicles than are popular here. One more example of Democrats crippling themselves for sake of appeasing a 'political reality' that is at odds with doing what is necessary to preserve our nation's economy in the face of perpetually rising oil prices. Of course, that assumes that the Democrats actually cared about anything but securing enough corporate donations to win re-election.
Perhaps the answer is to tax cars by calculation of fuel economy, weight, engine size, tank size etc. and stick them in various bands, e.g. A-F with A being most efficient, F being worst. Don't tax anyone in A and punitively raise the tax from bands B-F. People will buy more fuel efficient vehicles just to avoid the hassle of paying taxes on them.
I've never "renewed my pates" in my life. They send me a bill, I send them money, they send me a sticker to put on my plate. If we have to add in an odometer reading, who's going to be authorized to record that information? Am I going to have to go to the DMV every year? That place is already a clusterfuck. Am I going to have to do it when I get my car smogged? That happens every 2 years. Well, it will after the first 5 years or so. Am I going to have to make quarterly estimates or something until that happens?
Basically there is a deficit, it has to be cut and the national debt has to be reduced. Social security has to be saved as well. This means only one option, we must raise taxes or die.
So then close all the corporate tax loopholes and have them pay their fair share. Stop letting companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, etc get away with playing shell games to avoid taxes.
There's no need to further tax the middle class though when the rich and wealthy have plenty of money we can tax. Same with the oil companies like Exxon who pays $0 to the US but pays taxes in every other country they operate in.
Just tax the rich because I'm not rich and probably never will be, so yeah screw them. Maybe the government can give me some of that money so I can do things like go to the doctor. I know, radical right?
From TFA:
The proposed “Transportation Opportunities Act” would mandate a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax that’s calculated by installing electronic equipment on each car and at filling stations. VMT calculation and payment would take place electronically every time you buy gas at the pump.
It won't be soon but, at some point, enough cars will be electric that we will need an alternative to the fuel tax. But electric cars don't go to filling stations which makes a mileage tax based on visits to filling stations kind of pointless. It's a lot more complex than the fuel tax and it is even less accurate. Fuel taxes account for the fact that larger vehicles, which cause more damage to the roads per mile, also burn more fuel per mile.
As others have said, it is a lot simpler to just raise the fuel tax. Actually, I don't understand why the fuel tax is a fixed value anyway. If it were a % of the purchase price like ordinary sales taxes, then revenue should stay fairly level as prices rise and usage drops.
Back in the 50's-80's the Federal Government somehow built a large network of roads called Highways boosting the economy for a minimal increase in taxes. Look at this graph: http://nationalpriorities.org/tools/taxday/breakdown-one-dollar/
You see the very first big bar? That could easily be cut down to 1/4 or 1/8 (the UK, the next largest military spender spends 1/10th of this per capita) without affecting actual defensive measures. Since the 60's the spending has doubled (inflation adjusted) and over the last decade the interest over the debt incurred on those figures are going up exponentially. And that's not including Iraq and Afghanistan which Bush (and the big O hasn't fixed it either) decided to cut out of the public numbers a couple of years ago.
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Just have drivers self report it and make it one of the things that gets verified in the event of an audit. Make the fines and fees exactly the same as if the person had cheated on their taxes some other way. If a car is sold, have a way for the buyer and seller to, independently of each other, submit the mileage at the time of sale and if there's a significant discrepancy have the new owner take it down to the DMV within 30 days to have someone there record it.
Honestly, I don't have any problem with a per mile tax but I have a huge, huge issue with any kind of device being placed on my car. Not only is it an incredibly invasive invasion of privacy, it's also way more expensive and complex than any taxing method should be.
just increase the tax on gas instead: by that not only do you tax cars by the mile, but you actually have fuel efficiency included in the tax and an actual incentive for drivers to use more fuel efficient cars. And thus an incentive to avoid unnecessary CO2 emission. Also, if the gas or diesel is taxed directly, large trucks will automatically pay more tax per kilometer, which relates nicely to the bigger damage they cause on highways.
So you can't close loopholes when corporations write the laws.
What you can do however is gain the support of corporations to institute a tax to pay for infrastructure that helps reduce the costs to corporations. If less people are late for work it in theory reduces costs for corporations. If less people have to physically go to work because of telework it reduces costs for corporations. Driving just doesn't benefit the economy all that much and is a necessary evil.
The question is where do we get the tax revenue, and if we cannot get it from corporations because corporations are multinational, we must get it from people who can only live in one nation at a time.
Who says only drivers should pay? Non drivers get the benefit of the roads too. Unless of course they don't shop, use the emergency systems, or engage in commerce of any kind.
The cost of the road infrastructure is fairly small compared to several other social programs. If the government wasn't so tied up in being everyone's mother, the cost of infrastructure would be easily collected via small income/sales taxes (or whatever) and the vast majority of people would accept those taxes because there is tangible and obvious benefits to having a working infrastructure.
Of course you can. You do it by spending less.
Why should the government save grandma? Paying for education... well, first there's the racket of Universities always increasing their tuition by the amount the government allows students to borrow, but more importantly it's the only kind of loan you can't discharge in bankruptcy. Student lending is a veritable goldmine for the government, and if they didn't have laws protecting their goldmine you can bet your bottom dollar that private banks would take up the mantle. Higher education is so lucrative it's ridiculous.
Unemployment? Well, that's insurance more or less. You pay an unemployment tax, and then if you later become unemployed you can collect. If the government didn't have a monopoly on that, too, I'd probably pay a private insurer for the same thing.
Losing social security? Fine by me. Let the workers take the ridiculous amount of money they pour into that system every paycheck and let them invest it on their own. Shoot, even mandate that you must invest a certain percent of your income somewhere if you're worried about people not doing it. Education? Well, see above. If you're in the U.S., you pay out the nose for it. Healthcare.. not really sure how taxes are related to that.
Sony ha
>>>They know, knew, and understand that you cannot fix a deficit or reduce the national debt without raising taxes.
Of course you can.
Just spend less money. It's how I fixed my deficit, while my wages held steady. Canceled the cable, canceled the cellphone, turned off the heat, et cetera. Same principle applies at the national level - just cut spending on unnecessary bullshit (like wars, studying butterfly sex, renovating congressional offices, and so on).
>>>driving is a luxury. Just so long as we don't get taxed for the bus, the train, the plane or group transportation.
Why should these individuals be tax-free? I say if car drivers are hit with an additional ~25% per year, then the same thing should happen to metro/bus tickets. Add another 25% tax.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
-Signed, a 17.5 mpg 1999 Ford Explorer V8 driver who drives 50 miles round trip for work every day.
No kidding. Before you know it, they'll make auto-insurance required by law, just like health insurance!
It is a shame that they no longer teach in schools the difference between state and federal governments and the division of responsibilities accorded each based on the US Constitution. That's got to be the only reason such a stupid comment like this would appear here.
For the sarcasm impaired: the auto insurance laws are STATE laws that require coverage to protect THE OTHER GUY sharing the road with you; the new health insurance law is a FEDERAL LAW that nobody could bother to read before they voted on it that applies to everyone except those who have enough political clout to get exempted from it.
The other difference is that the AUTO insurance laws don't force insurers to cover every trip to the mechanic or replacement of worn out parts, while the HEALTH insurance law does.
Libertarian? Noam Chomsky not David Koch.
If you don't know the difference then you are a corporatist posing as a libertarian. A real libertarian believes in human rights, a corporatist only believes in rights for corporations.
What about the taxes we already pay to the state for DOT maintenance? What about the income taxes we already pay? What about the vehicle taxes we already pay for 'regular yearly use' (at least in NC we do).
different taxes. if you are complaining about this, may i suggest you petition your elected officials to adopt a flat rate tax. until then, all of this has zero to do with the gas tax they are looking to replace.
What about the inspection fees we have to pay? What about tax-title-tag fees when we buy a vehicle?
you are complaining about state issues. my state doesn't have the same inspection fees as you, nor does my state have the same tax-title-tag fees when we buy a vehicle (and if you are an out of state buyer, there are no tax title tag fees). so something tells me this is going to remain the same because *gasp* it's not related to the gas tax.
What about the taxes added to gasoline and diesel prices?
whew, finally got threw the the ridiculous questions and found something related to this article. we will not ween America off of oil. period. oil is used in EVERYTHING today. that plastic keyboard you're banging on? yea. so your idea of taxing vehicles to ween the US off oil is a misguided fallacy. this policy is to REPLACE the gasoline tax which will see it's revenue stream decrease as hybrid and full-on electric engines become the norm (gas may hit $10/gal but that is moot when you only need one gallon to move 600 miles as opposed to $4/gal @ 25 gallons). so you may very well see gas taxes lifted (or more probable, lowered) as a mileage tax takes off.
Would this policy exempt electronic vehicles? Ethanol/Corn Derivatives? Motorcycles? Scooters?
you tell me. seriously, you tell me. this isn't something some overpowering dictator is pushing onto it's people, it is what your elected officials are doing in the interest of their people. you can easily write your congressman and senator and demand certain vehicles to be exempt. your voice isn't being heard? hire lobbyists to make your voice louder.
How about cutting the defense budget
as for your pedestal about the defense budget... just remember this. DoD creates a LOT of jobs. slashing the defense budget is akin to putting people on the street. i can tell you the IT industry alone would suffer from the amount of contractors that would flood to the streets. think dot-comdays multiplied across every industry DoD contracts to. maybe later, maybe gradually, but definitely not now.
but even if you taxed 100% of every single person's income
also, if you taxed 100% of everyone's income you have what is called socialism. you are correct if you are saying socialism does not create a balanced budget. you are incorrect if you are saying raising taxes does not reduce the deficit.
Easy one first:
Also, remember that the Government already gets more in taxes then the oil companies make in profit per gallon of gas.
Also, remember that the oil companies already get more in revenue than the government earns providing roads to drive on.
You compared REVENUE to PROFIT. Not the same thing. Oil companies profit on the sale of gas. The government spends more money building roads than it gets in gas taxes, so it's operating at a LOSS.
Since the oil companies can't make any money on gas unless the government builds and maintains roads, the government should increase gas taxes until road spending is paid for. Alternatively, the government could also put a special tax on oil company profits so that the government is no longer subsidizing the oil company's business.
What oil subsidies and tax loopholes do you refer too? Oh, maybe its the accelerated depreciation and manufacturers tax credits....something just about all corporations who produce something can get.
The problem is that the oil companies are getting those credits WITHOUT PRODUCING ANYTHING!
The biggest culprit is allowing oil companies to take a capital depreciation expense on the value of the oil that they remove from the ground. That makes no sense at all. The way a capital expense is supposed to work is a business spends $1 million on capital and then gets to write off that $1 million over the lifetime of the equipment. If you allow that deduction to be accelerated, then the manufacturer might write off that $1 million in the first year. Either way, the manufacturer still actually paid $1 million for the asset.
What oil companies do is they find some oil, then declare that oil to be worth $1 million dollars, and then as they pump the oil out of the ground, deduct the value of the oil taken from the ground from their taxes. Problem: They never had an expense with acquiring the oil! It's an expense deduction with no expense, i.e. a handout.
It's like finding a winning lottery ticket on the ground worth $1 million/year for 30 years, and each year you're paid $1 million, claiming a $1 million capital expense deduction on your taxes.
It's a handout, period.
paintball
Because mass of the vehicle has a hell of a lot to do with how much damage they do. Mass per axle needs to be taken into account as well as total distance driven.
Which kind of brings us back to the idea of this as basically a more complicated equivalent of a gas tax...
I mean, heavier vehicles will tend to have poorer fuel economy, and obviously if you drive farther you use more gas. If you accept also that it's desirable to encourage people to drive more efficient vehicles when possible, then it really seems like a gas tax is the way to go.
But it's unpopular to do anything that raises the price of gasoline. I suspect that may be why they're looking at alternatives. Tax basically the same thing, but measure it differently so people won't curse you every time they go to a gas station.
Bow-ties are cool.
People on the liberal end of the spectrum tend to view taxation in static terms. The rich have a certain amount. You raise taxes on them 10%, you get 10% more revenue. Life is way more complicated than that.
Wealth flees. People cut back in other areas. People hire less. And a bunch of other unintended consequences we can't foresee.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Cripes, it wants the government to buy and install a bazillion fancy devices and install them on every car in the country? Well, I know one company that would like to see it pass...
Why is it this stupid idea reappears every 6 months or so? Every time it involves some expensive piece of hardware (GPS receivers for instance) that needs to be bought and installed on all umpteen million cars in the country, instead of the far more sensible solution of just having the yearly inspection guy write down the mileage off of the odometer every time you bring your car in and report that along with your results to the government. It won't work in states that don't do safety inspections, but they could work something out (owner just self reports for instance) that's about a billion times cheaper than whatever technological solution someone is trying to create a market for.
I read the internet for the articles.
But hospitals are forced by the government to eat the costs when an uninsured person shows up in the ER, and you can't choose beforehand whether you'll ever need a trip to the ER.
Yup. There's been somebody trying to push this to the state governments for a few years. I don't know if they're trying to sell a product to get states to mandate it (or now, Feds), or if they're Federal or state cops trying to get a privacy-invasion technology deployed under the guise of tax revenue enhancement. The proposals that the states have gotten have been for devices that are continuously tracking your location (because after all, if you drive across state borders, your state should only tax you for the miles driven inside your state), and just because that argument doesn't really apply for a Federal tax, it's still part of the sales pitch. They're less susceptible to mission creep than you'd expect because they already started as a way-overblown program, so the mission is pre-creeped on arrival.
At a state level, almost all states require annual car registration and usually inspection, so they could just check the odometer then.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
> They know, knew, and understand that you cannot fix a deficit or reduce the
> national debt without raising taxes.
That is just insane. Go find any source of information you prefer and find graphs of revenue and spending over the last few decades. The problem isn't on the revenue side, our problem is we want to spend too fracking much. Trying to solve a problem of uncontrolled spending by finding new revenue ain't going to work. If your spouse is spending like a drunken sailor getting a second job won't fix it, s/he will just see that as a reason to just spend even more. Which, if you will look at the information I just asked you to inspect, is exactly what has happened EVERY time we have tried to solve the deficit by raising taxes. Even though the taxes are almost always part of a 'grand bargain' to cut X dollars of spending for every Y dollar of new taxes what actually happens is the taxes are increases and spending goes UP instead of down. EVERY. TIME. This last showdown was the first time in memory that spending will actually go down (mostly smoke and mirrors but WTH) instead of the rate of growth being trimmed. Even the sainted Reagan never cut the size of government, only the growth rate.
The problem is Democrats (with the support of too damned many RINOs) have spent the last century making increasingly expensive promises that couldn't be paid for. All those guys back in the 60's and 70's yelling "we are heaping impossible commitments of debt upon our children and grandchildren" were right. Just glad most of the hippie scum who supported the creation of this monster welfare state are retiring just in time to bear the brunt of their own stupidity. Thank Obama for ramping Bush's insane spending to levels that defy vocabulary itself for bringing the trainwreck from twenty years in the future to 'any day now.'
> So all their talk about cutting and tax reduction is impossible on paper, basic math
> will tell you less revenue in means less to spend with. Less input = less output.
Math says nothing of the sort. The tax rate cuts (I'm assuming you are parroting leftie talking points against Ryan's plan) are offset by elimination of deductions to make them revenue neutral. However by simplifying the code significant economic growth is possible which of course helps the govenment two ways: it increases tax revenues and decreases income transfer payments to the unemployed.
Here is what appears to be an iron law. After varying tax rates all over the map over the past century we have had an income tax it appears impossible to collect more than 18-20% of GDP, it spikes to 20% and falls back.. The more you raise rates the more people have incentives to avoid taxation at the highest rates and rich people can afford lots of tax advice, especially when a crapload of money is at stake. Again, you can look this up on the Internet thingie. Since we are already banging up against that limit talk of increasing income taxes is just stupid. Yea you can 'punish the rich' and all that but the revenue won't show up in the treasury, meanwhile because CBO is a bunch of 'tards the revenue will have been expected and spent because of the utterly broken static scoring model they insist on using. More likely is higher rates slow the economy and you get lower revenues. So Yea, bigger deficits!
Democrat delenda est
It's not a terrible idea in theory, because as cars become more efficient there is less money collected in gas taxes, but you still have to maintain the roads and better fuel economy does not equal less wear on the roads.
However, if you intend to put a GPS tracking device on every car to implement it, that's where I draw the line. I'm as liberal/progressive/Democrat as they come, but I STRONGLY oppose any governmental program to track our driving. Oh they'll swear up and down that the data won't be used for surveillance, but when has law enforcement/FBI/CIA EVER turned down access to tracking methods or databases? And is it really cost-effective to put a $100-200 GPS on every vehicle in the country?
People ask "don't you trust your government"? Not in general - about some things, but not about this. I hated that Bush started illegal warrantless wiretapping and wholesale monitoring of internet traffic, and I hate that Obama is continuing it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong Obama supporter, but wrong is wrong no matter which political party does it.
As others have already commented, there's already a device in every car that tracks mileage driven - it's called an odometer. Just have the odometer read whenever you renew your registration, have your yearly inspection, or whatever your state requires. If making people give a lump sum all at once is a hardship, fold it into your yearly tax forms or something, maybe let people pay their mileage taxes they owe monthly or something. Keep It Simple, Stupid!