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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 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...
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.
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I wouldn't. A consumption-based tax practically balances itself. The heavier vehicles create more wear due to their greater mass and they pay more into the tax fund because they consume more fuel to move that mass around. There's nothing to calculate or measure or derive. Vehicles are taxed according to their impact on the infrastructure. I realize it's not an absolute "prefect justice for all" scenario but there's very little bureaucracy involved in the current scenario so it should cost very little to implement (or, in this case, maintain). XX cents per gallon consumed. Done. All-electric and alternative fuel vehicles are such a small percentage that it's not worth the hassle of worrying about them at this point.
The whole thing makes no sense. Usually we use taxes to create incentives and disincentives, nudging the public in a direction determined by government.
By taxing gas you create an incentive for people to drive fewer miles and to use more efficient vehicles. I presume these are both aims of government.
Taxing per mile means there is no penalty for using an excessively large vehicle with poor fuel consumption over driving a smaller car that uses less fuel. I don't see any government implementing it in that simple form. It might be different if the proposal were to include bands for vehicles based on fuel consumption or emissions, with higher per mile charges for inefficient vehicles.
One disadvantage of taxing gas consumption or pollution is that we don't usually know how many people are in a vehicle. As a result, a family of six traveling in a minivan may be penalized at the same rate as an individual driving an SUV that has similar gas consumption.
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.
Trucks should pay even more. They do the most damage to the road. If that is too expensive than let goods go over roads the companies pay for. You will find they choose nice smooth steel roads and steel wheels.
Usually we use taxes to create incentives and disincentives, nudging the public in a direction determined by government.
The purpose of taxes isn't to control behavior or restrict personal choice, it's to raise revenue. Of course, lobbying groups try to move taxation to where it least affects them OR to impose their social agenda on others -- but that's not the purpose of taxes, it's just a natural side effect that yields our ungainly tax code.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
The problem isn't taxing for road usage(in fact, were it not for the culture that you mention, such a proposal would theoretically be equally desireable for conservatives(who tend to like "users fees" because they dislike taxes and dislike the possibility that people might end up being subsidized)) and liberals(who tend to suspect that individual-vehicle transport, especially the petro kind, has been the recipient of massive, if not overt, subsidies for pretty much the entire post WWII period, making possible an entire suburban material culture that cannot exist without those subsidies).
The problem with mileage taxes is with administration, enforcement, and mission creep. Unlike, say, fuel taxes(which have the fairly convenient advantage of approximately taxing a composite of vehicle size and vehicle miles traveled, which is a good rough estimate of vehicle road 'consumption', without ever having the tax man leave the shop), mileage taxes require, at bare minimum, the tax man inspecting every vehicle's odometer(or at least a sufficiently large sample that most people report theirs honestly on the 1040v.2). If mission creep or ulterior interests come into play, you could pretty easily end up with GPS black boxes, or other less tweakable(you don't even need to crack the odometer, just ensure that the rotations to miles conversion it is using is based on slightly smaller wheels than you are using) methods.
Employing an overhead-heavy, potentially very invasive, taxation strategy when a simple retail sale tax one would work nearly as well strikes me as a serious problem. The notion that, while many roads are basically natural monopolies, and thus cannot be run on free market lines, one can attempt to make one's payment for road use approximately proportional to their use of roads seems entirely sensible.
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.
Fact, the Federal Gasoline Tax was last raised in 1993, not the 1980s.
Fact, 40% of the Federal Gasoline Tax doesn't go to transportation construction or maintenance, but to Federal Budget earmarks.
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.