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Oregon Lawmakers Propose Mileage Tax On Fuel Efficient Vehicles
Hugh Pickens writes "Facing a $10 billion revenue shortfall for transportation financing, the Oregon Legislature is expected to consider a bill to require drivers with a vehicle getting at least 55 miles per gallon of gasoline to pay a per-mile tax after 2015 to offset the loss in tax revenue for fuel efficient cars at the gas pump, where the government has traditionally collected money to build and fix roads. Oregonians currently pay 30 cents per gallon, a tax that is automatically added at the pump, but as cars become more fuel efficient and alternative fuel sources are identified, state officials project gas tax revenue will decline. 'Everybody uses the road, and if some pay and some don't, then that's an unfair situation that's got to be resolved,' says Jim Whitty of the Department of Transportation. Opponents of the Oregon proposal say it will hurt a new industry. 'It will be one more obstacle that the industry and auto dealers will face in convincing consumers to buy these new cars,' says Paul Cosgrove, a lobbyist for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Other states, such as Nevada and Washington, are also looking at a per-mile charge and a Washington law that would charge electric car owners an annual fee goes into effect in February. Oregon did a pilot study of the mileage tax (PDF) where participants paid 1.56 cents per mile and got a credit for any gasoline tax they paid at the pump. Although initial media portrayals of the system were almost uniformly negative, 91% of test participants preferred the mileage tax to paying gas taxes."
and let the tiny-dicked losers who drive SUVs and pickups pick up the tab.
Without GPS, how do they know when you leave the state? And with GPS isn't that a serious privacy issue?
Here in Washington State, they are planning a $100 / year fee for these types of vehicles.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Damn infrastructure freeloaders the lot of them.
Could help take care of the smug problem that quite a few high millage car drivers have.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Might understand if it were Texas. Overseas, Oregon cultivates this reputation as a green, hipster-friendly state. Weird that the state legislature is proposing such backwards legislation.
...the gov't can only really provide incentive toward a desirable result.
This proposal is doing it wrong.
BS! Why aren't we taxing conventional car drivers more? This is how we incentivize people to drive more fuel efficient cars. Lawmakers are the most uncreative lot. B00!
Make the people burning the gasoline pay the taxes. Light cars doing 55 mpg don't really damage roadways.
Increase the gas tax to compensate. Gasoline should already be taxed more highly that it is because of it's numerous externalities.
That will just incent the purchase of higher mileage vehicles, reinforcing a virtuous cycle.
Eventually I suppose the time will come when taxation of high mileage vehicles will be needed, but clearly that isn't now.
So, if you are a truck driver, does that mean you have to go through a state border check when entering and leaving the state?
I don't really understand the difference between levying a higher gas tax (which is far easier to implement), and implementing a complicated system for tracking miles driven, and levying this at the gas pump.
Call me stupid, couldn't Oregon achieve two goals of their goals (reducing SUVs, and increased revenue) by simply adjusting the gas tax by the average MPG for cars each year? No crazy GPS+Transmitter system needed, no transition time to a new system, and no invasion of privacy needed...
I don't really understand why people are more amenable to a mile tax system vs gas tax... Unless you have a 100% electric car, you still pay for the additional miles driven, through the additional gas you consume. The only difference is you can reduce your taxes paid by purchasing a more fuel-efficient car...
Check in station? EZ-Pass style detectors tied to the odometer? Some other secret black box? Taxes are the least of the worries for anyone who drives more efficient cars. Suddenly milage (among other things about your driving habits, I'm sure) gets added to the list of things recorded by the state.
If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
They should just have a smaller mileage tax that applies to all vehicles (not just efficient ones) to avoid creating an incentive to have less efficient cars.
just charge per number of miles driven per car. report the odometer reading yearly. drive more, pay more. this will encourage both more fuel efficient cars and living closer to work. The proposal is insane. Next: charge more tax to heavily insulated homes and those with efficient appliances, since they pay less electriciy?
How utterly loverly. I hope they are not planning to charge people for not filling gas at all.
Reminds me of the old joke. The opera was so good, they charged me 100 bucks to sit in the balcony and 200 for not attending.
the same people who made it illegal for customers to pump their own gas (every station in Oregon is "full service").
I have a much better idea, one that lawmakers seem to have forgotten decades ago when the baby boomers came into power (thanks for piling debt on our backs, assholes!!). How about they cut spending? I'm sure there is a lot of wasted money in administrative overhead. How about trimming administrative costs, and make DOT maintenance management a volunteer job, or a maybe provide a salary that pays no more than the average worker who mans a shovel?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Bunch of cowboy hippies with shotguns would tear up the Capitol lawn in their Prius's.
Road wear is approximately proportional to the square of the weight of a vehicle per axle raised to the 4th power. The more efficient vehicles typically weigh a lot less, and are costing less per mile in road maintenance anyway.
They already have the mechanism to subsitute some amount of mileage taxes for some of the gas taxes. Most state already have a "smog-check" requirement where a licenced facility records the odometer reading so you can register your car. They could easily just add a mileage tax to your vehicle licencing fees as a requirement to register your car. If enough states do this, you could even just tie this to the reciprocal licence-plate identifcation toll agreements that states have with each other (to enable them to replace toll takers with electronic toll devices and licence plate readering software) to account for some out-of-state licence plates.
The current gas tax is probably highly regressive anyhow (poor folk driving older cars that get lower MPG on average pay more than rich folks that driver newer cars that get better MPG), so this seems like the progressive thing to do. You probably don't want to get rid of the gas tax entirely (as it has a small amount of incentive for getting cars that get better MPG), but say split the desired revenue collection about 50-50.
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!
I predicted this two decades ago based on the Netherlands, which forced into existence natural gas car conversions, then slapped a massive tax on them such that you have to drive about 20,000 km/year before you break even vs. gas tax.
HAW HAW HAW HAW, observe asses in action. It's about the money, fools. And what handing it out can buy, which is votes. Everything else is sophistry.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
One more way our high-dollar welfare-rats (the ones who draw pay from the taxpayers, and are situated to write their own increases, and make their [and their friends'] grafts and grifts "legal") have cooked up to screw the middle-classes, wh are the only ones with enough income to be paying taxes, and so to be forced to buy fuel-efficient vehicles to afford to drive to work and pay taxes. "Make the paying people pay more so we can spend more!"
Electric/hybrid vehicles should pay less per mile as they do less damage to the roads. An engineer friend told me that road damage is proportional to the fourth power of the weight, so an SUV that weighs 5500 pounds will wear the roads approximately 10 times faster than a hybrid that weights 3000 pounds. It's only fair and reasonable that the Escalade driver pays 10 times the gas taxes, assuming that lawmakers are being honest about what those taxes are used for. Yeah, I know; I had a hard time typing that last part with a straight face.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Its not the miles that wear down the roads, its the weight. Heavier vehicles do exponentially more damage than light vehicles. The tax should reflect this.
To real estate taxes? You'll get money from the "everyone" using the roads. Same as schools.
This will be a serious stumbling block to America's efforts to ween itself of foreign oil if adopted. Heck, I can see 'patriots' chewing a cigar in a giant gas-guzzler claiming they're doing their bit and that you'd have to be mad to buy one of these funny-lookin' eco cars.
Ha ha ha haaaaaaaa!!!!!! This is awesome. I can imagine in incredulity of the eco-fascists who are going to be pissed that the state dare tax them more when in their minds "they are doing something good for the earth" by purchasing efficient cars. As a serial entrepreneur who is often told to pay his fair share, that I can afford to pay more taxes, and that businesses and rich people are evil and therefore deserve to be taxed, I find this quite satisfying after the residents of California voted to increase my state taxes by 40% retroactively for 2012. What liberals often fail to understand is that the state is not their friend, and that no matter what or who you are, the population of this country is seen as nothing more than a medium to hand out favors to the politically connected and corrupt. Screw everyone who voted for Obama. You are going to get what you asked for. Socialism stops working when you run out of other people's money.
Seriously, whoever is on this site applauding more taxes, or taking an authoritarian viewpoint suggesting that we need more legislation or more taxes, or redistribution in any way needs to have their head examined. It's not a left or right issue. Stop supporting tyranny and oppression.
Back in the 90s there was a panic over water shortages in California so they pushed people to reduce water usage. The program worked so well it cut into the operating budget of the water department so they raised rates to make up for lost revenue. Essentially they are penalizing people for being responsible. It's a horrible message at best. Just raise the gas tax on everyone. Sure the gas guzzlers will keep paying more as they should. This idea of shared burden so you don't single out SUV owners and others that prefer gas hogs like aging Hummers and trucks is nuts. If you are worried about road upkeep raising taxes on tires would make more sense so everyone pays rather than attacking high mileage car owners.
Screw all this complicated stuff.
Just do something like the FairTax but at the state level - a sales tax *only* (includes gas) - and eliminate all the other taxes.
One simple percentage sales tax, that's it.
The reduction in bureaucracy will help too.
what about plan B build more toll roads / change free ones to tolls.
What are law makers going to do when in ten to twenty years we have self driving cars that they can't give ticket to? "Obeying laws tax" for all self driving vehicles?
Ditch the gasoline tax and apply the mileage tax to ALL cars. Everybody pays an equal share without convoluted calculations.
Awesome idea! Please impose a per-mile tax on fuel efficient vehicles such as hybrids.
By the way, you might want to review your existing $1500 rebate for purchasing said hybrid:
http://www.oregon.gov/ENERGY/cons/res/tax/docs/hybridform.pdf
[reaches into bag of applicable figures of speech]
Let's see:
Left hand doesn't know what the right hand... no, wait...
Rebates giveth, and per-mile taxes taketh... WAIT, NO I GOT IT!
Stop being stupid.
The gas tax is an extremely regressive tax. That means it is a tax that disproportionately taxes the poor. For example If I am a CEO that makes 800 times my workers do I buy 800 times as much gas? Roads should be paid for by progressive income taxation.
We should tax all foreigners not living in our country.
rewriting history since 2109
the environmental benefits and lower consumption aren't worth anything to these idiots in salem? this is aimed squarely at those who drive plug-in electrics, but those owners SHOULD get a little break (besides the federal credits at time of purchase) for their choice of car to buy.
not collecting enough fuel tax? just raise the per-gallon rate. that's easy and uses existing systems and infrastructure to collect. costs zero to implement, unlike a complicated system of tracking every vehicle and billing for miles driven -- which has it's own privacy issues besides. if road fuel is to be taxed, the existing method of per-gallon taxes collected by federal and state governments are the ONLY reasonable and fair way to go. it penalizes those who drive less efficient vehicles (we DO want people to drive efficient vehicles), or damage roads (larger, heavier vehicles do more damage) while providing an incentive to change to cleaner, more efficient models or to drive less (or carpool, walk, bike, or take public transit, etc).
a combination of a little higher registration fee (for all vehicles, not just high efficiency or electric ones) combined with a modest per-gallon increase should be more than enough to offset the supposed loss in road tax revenues.
at the risk of -1 from oregon residents... oregon could also start collecting a modest statewide sales tax (it doesn't currently have one) to bring in a few extra bucks. they do not need to violate every state driver's privacy by using a costly to implement and administer per-mile tax. but knowing how the masses usually vote, if it comes down to driver privacy + per mile tax vs a small statewide sales tax, voters will choose to be tracked everywhere they go even if it ends up costing them more money. the stigma of a "state sales tax" will lose every time -- and has numerous times before at the ballots, which is why oregon has one of the highest state personal *income* tax rates in the country instead.
they already have a 10 percent alcohol law that requires 10 percent alcohol be added to every gallon of gasoline. The alcohol will hold up to its own weight of water in suspension, so the water will go through the fuel system instead of settling in the tank. Alcohol has lower volumetric efficiency than gasoline as a fuel. This means that in cars with exhaust oxygen sensors and computers the fuel injection increases for lower fuel efficiency. For the computer's controlling the fuel injection cars running on 10 percent alcohol get approximately 19 percent poorer fuel mileage. With an appreciable amount of water in the fuel the mileage goes further down. This means that driving the same number of miles drivers in Oregon use six gallons, while drivers in Southern California, where smog, not tax revenues controls fuel quality, will use five gallons. Driving in L.A. my car gets 47-plus MPG. In Oregon it gets 40-plus, down to 37-plus when there is about 5 percent water with the alcohol and gasoline. Oregon drivers are already paying an extra gallon-worth of gas-taxes for every five gallons they need to use, and are adding that extra gallon's pollution to the air, and using an extra gallon, minus 10 percent, of fossil-fuel. Isn't that one-in-five extra gallon an extra tax, on both drivers and environment?
What about the fact that light cars cause much less damage to the roadways than heavy ones? It is generally well accepted that the damage caused to the roadways is roughly proportional to the fourth power of the axle weight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_axle_weight_rating). Any fair tax system should charge heavy vehicles much more than light ones because the heavy vehicles are responsible for most of the maintenance costs. It is just bizarre that we would encourage people to drive less efficient vehicles that reduce environmental costs and reduce road maintenance costs.
you haven't been to Austin recently.
'Everybody uses the road, and if some pay and some don't, then that's an unfair situation that's got to be resolved,' says Jim Whitty of the Department of Transportation.
Like most polititians, he's lying through his teeth. Oregon USED to have dedicated highway monies from gas taxes, but for the last decade or more its been going into the general fund to be squander with stupid, wasteful spending (like a quarter million dollars to change all the name signs on Beltline drive in Eugene to the name of some friend of the Governor).
Like most states, Oregon doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
My recollection from back when I liven in Ohio was vehicle registration fees were based on vehicle weight under the presumption that heavier vehicles put more wear on the roads. Seems reasonable and is non-discriminatory. The idea of tax per mile for one class of vehicle seems just stupid. If you are going to tax per mile do it to all vehicles.
WTF? The physics are well known and understood outside of politics: F=MA. High millage cars have less Mass. Faster roads cost more because of A, it is not difficult to find out the HUGE expense of raising speed limits have on new roads and maintenance. If you are going to tax based upon distance driven, a fuel consumption tax makes sense; however, if you do not consume ANY fuel this approach fails to be equitable. This proposal does not solve the problem and continues the same irrational solution. If one wants to be actually be "equitable," there would be a mass AND an odometer check, (or even GPS tracking.)
In my state we pay car registration tax, sticker renewal tax, plate renewal tax, tax on required insurance, in addition to gas tax. The sticker renewal tax should include an odometer check, since that is yearly and the fee wouldn't be high enough to motivate fraud... More work and effort to do that? yes; however, we waste millions on idiotic yearly stickers (and postal notifications) when we could just pay higher plate renewal tax every 6 years so practicality is already not important.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
There is a way to get fair buy your own gas miser.
I drove a hummer did I get a rebate.
Fuck them fuck them one and all.
They need to stop wasting our existing tax money on stupid shit, not making up more taxes when they spend it all unwisely because of incompetence.
Well they are in Oregon if this proposal is actually serious and not a pre-April Fool's joke. Just do what everyone else on the planet does and jack up the Gas tax until you have enough revenue to take care of your road system. How hard can it be? At the same time you're encouraging people to use vehicles that use less gas and buying more gas is money leaving your country, for the most part. That's as fair as fair can be. And any engineer will tell you that lighter cars don't damage roads as much as larger vehicles so paying a milage tax is obviously just lobbying from nuts that like to drive larger vehicles. Charge the ones who do the damage.
OMG. I hate that idea.
But it seems downright reasonable. Guh.
I guess it's not politically correct to insult SUV and pickup drivers on Slashdot.
It's not a penalty, you faint-hearted, lame, shit-eating excuse for a tree hugger. It's an attempt to spread the cost of BUILDING roads fairly across the people who USE those roads. It's about how miles rolled diverge from gallons pumped; not how your little junkmobile sips fuel while barely being able to push its thin-walled, plastic self down an onramp faster than an old lady in a walker, all the while you're bleeding off what little speed your tiny, tiny engine has managed to impart to your sorry amalgamation of mismatched parts as you leave skinny little tire marks dodging squirrels in abject fear of thousands of dollars of body damage.
Personally, I think you little turdlets in your I'm-so-hip tinycockmobiles should be penalized by being run off the fucking road, where your little texting-phones would get driven through your misshapen skulls until they met your little white earbuds in an explosion of angsty fucktard granola-fed brain matter. Then your remains should be fed to wildlife, while your complete piece of shit can't-go-in-snow junker gets crushed and recycled into a respectable 4WD with a bench seat so that adults with functioning gonads can sit together, rather than strapped into your paper-thin faggotty bucketass seats, seatbelts on, faces perpetually ready for immersion in a fucking airbag. We'll hang a rainbow-colored, bio-degradable kitchen apron on a reflector post to celebrate your erasure from the planet.
taxed at the pump for what is supposed to be spent on roads (just goes into the consolodated fund). It's not a particularly fair tax to begin with, but it irks me that I have to pay it to fill my mower/chainsaw/dirt bike... A tax on miles travelled is fairer (implemented here for diesel vehicles) but is still far from fair - even based on vehicle weight. Of course in NZ I can't drive out-of-state - much more complicated in the US.
(1)Extra tax from employers & pay checks for dirty car pollution fee. (2) Increase gas tax. (3)Create micro refineries that turns waste/produce/grain into gas/diesel/bio-diesel/ethanal. #1 & #2 increase revenue and #3 creates jobs. Jobs also creates revenues.
Grow the micro refineries and export fuel.
The problem isn't that they are collecting enough money to pay for the roads and infrastructure, it is that they are using the money for other activities.
When I lived out in California they would cry all the damn time that they didn't have enough money to do proper upkeep and new construction. That lie held up until a few watchdog groups did an audit and found that California was only spending about 25% of what they were collecting in fuel taxes on the roads. They had alot of "transportation related" projects that the money was going to, which is to say they had absolutely nothing to do with tranportation, such as funding an entire park with the short access road and small parking lot being the justification for it.
I'm pretty sure it would be a safe bet that Oregon is rigging the game the same way.
Yeah cutting spending is such a crazy idea. The poster above you didn't suggest a single thing you said. He said to cut admin costs and stop paying the equivalent of ditch diggers union salaries. Nobody is saying to shut down the cops/fire/ems/road crews. What they are saying is take a good look at where the money is being pissed away. Eventually you're going to run out of things to tax.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I drive an EV in Washington and there is a similar tax here. It's entirely reasonable. Like just about every service provided by the government, the ones who use the service ought to be the ones paying for it. For the roads that means drivers (and passengers, but let's assume passengers pay by paying the driver who then pays taxes).
Taxing is hard to make completely right. Ideally you'd pay per mile weighted by traffic heaviness which uses capacity plus some for weight * miles, which wears the roads, plus some tolls for special extra-expensive things like bridges. Tolls we can handle. But the other stuff is a lot of record keeping, and worse, it's an invasion of privacy. Until now we've worked around it by taxing gas as a proxy for mileage, ignoring the difference in time of day and gas mileage. That's been sub-optimal, but not a terrible tradeoff for privacy and costs of keeping records. We who use EVs completely dodge this tax and are basically using the roads free of charge, or at least free of being charged by this avenue. Now I think government is too big, taxes too much, and tries to do too much. But basic infrastructure is something it does and should provide, and the users should be the ones who pay for it. My EV uses those roads, so I absolutely should be charged for it.
Now for pie in the sky idealism. The best way to pay for roads would be something like tolltags on every public road everywhere but with some sort of cash equivalent but cryptographically secure tag that cannot be used to identify an individual. Gas taxes would still exist but they would be a lot lower, not intended to pay for road use but rather intended to pay for environmental damage.
Seriously, this is the only real option. Anything else and they'll just have to monkey with the system again in ten years as cars become even more fuel efficient.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
While we're at it. Why not base speed limits on the Momentum or Potential Energy (eg how much braking distance and potential for damage is involved), that a vehicle has, instead of one speed to rule them all. I'm pretty sick and tired of having 18+ wheeler Juggernauts sitting right up my sweet ass on the freeways and highways. The car I drive was designed to go safely at a much higher speed, in the traffic conditions.
In my part of Oregon, these are what really damage the roads. You get two nice, pothole ridden tracks along the major roads through town. Rather than taxing those driving fuel efficient cars, tax those tires instead. They're proven to cause damage to the roads.
(30 cents/gal) / (55 miles/gal) = 0.545 cents/mile
You'll note that this is substantially less than 1.56 cents/mile.
They could eliminate all gas taxes, and simply hike the taxes on tires. This would eliminate the difference between electric and gas vehicles. Also, different vehicles could be charged a different tire tax based on weight and other factors that would more accurately reflect wear on the roads. Big, heavy vehicles pay more. Light vehicles pay less.
How about the GOVERNMENT become more efficient in how they're spending the money they're already liberating from our paychecks. Why is it on us as citizens to fund their inadequacy and inefficiency every single time. I'm tire of paying more and more and more, and getting less and less. Demand excellence from government! Haven't YOU had enough?
Someone needs to be arrested for taking bribes from the petrol industry!
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Fuel efficient vehicles are also lighter and therefore do less damage. Unless they want to create a perverse incentive for 55 mpg cars, and thus environmental damage they'll have to pay for in other ways, they'd better think this over.
As the owner of a 70mpg 280lb motorcycle I commute on, my best option would be to take the motor out, sell the rest of the bike, and put the motor in another light bike rated for a mpg bellow the cutoff. Are the cops going to check my R1 to make sure its not missing 3 cylinders? I also don't think its far on usage as motorcycles do very little road damage with their lighter weight. Traditionally they've paid less usage because they use less gas, but unless there is an "Except motorcycles" clause, this would screw them.
I'd vote for this, if the direct tax on fuel was abolished and the new per-km tax rate was in direct proportion to the wear the vehicle caused to the road, which is in turn fairly easy to calculate based on the weight of the vehicle. Most hybrids and highly economical cars are lightweight so this would ultimately be a big win for anyone with a small car and you won't get any opposition from owners of hybrids. Big SUV owners will be up in arms though... but there aren't many voters who drive those are there? ;)
The other advantage is that rail freight might become economical again (wear on roads caused by small vehicles is insignificant compared to large trucks, so a "fair" tax would increase haulage rates by road). And it would make the cost of moving stuff around more expensive, encouraging local industry.
OTOH if you simply levy an additional tax on the tiny little hybrid vehicles because "they're using the roads but not paying their fair share of taxes" then you're doing it completely wrong.
Oh fuck that! Toll roads are pure evil! Here in Houston, the beltway 8 was payed off long ago with a promise to end charging a toll fee onced paid off. Never happened. In fact, fees have gone UP over the years!
Toll roads are a huge fucking cash cow. You thought red light cameras were bad, you obviously never had to factor in paying x dollars a month in toll fees because your job depended on.
BTW, the beltway is still a parking lot in rush hour. And you get the pleasure of being ass raped for it too. At least the view is nice high above...
I've heard of some retarded laws but taxing consumers for driving hybrid cars is out of control. The entire reason you buy a hybrid is to save money on gas, so why should I have to pay extra tax? To put this into prospective should truck drivers pay less for gas because they have small penis issues? If I want to drive my prius I should be allowed to. Taxing me for driving a car that isn't as hard on the enviroment gives the impression that if you care about fuel consumption you need to pay more.
Tax every one that doesn't have a drivers license or car since they will not use any fuel. Also dead people.
Idiots..
Look republicans and democrats are both spenders... just the republican social program's are the military and defense .. What needs to be done is this.
Cut costs, Raise revenue. Hmm , cut spending accross the board and raise taxes. Not just a balanced budget but an actual surplus and continue to save for the future...
a per-mile tax after 2015 to offset the loss in tax revenue for fuel efficient cars
Right, because the last thing we'd want to incentivize is fuel efficiency. Maybe those selfish economical drivers will see the error of their ways, man up, and start driving Hummers.
for Kinky Friedman's next campaign for Texas Governor. Or go to any Willie Nelson concert. You'll see crap that will make your head spin.
The easy way to attempt to balance this is to charge for only a percentage of the miles turned. Still not completely fair, but would square it up at least somewhat.
That is a really, really bad idea. Because the people to whom a percentage make a big difference are exactly who are driving the most out of state,which naturally puts a lot more mileage on vehicles.
There still really are traveling salesmen who drive all over a region, which could be several states. Or people like landscape photographers, who may well spend the bulk of time out of state. I myself drove across the country this summer, about 10% of the miles on my car for the year are from my state. There is no way any mileage based system is slightly fair unless you have GPS proof of where the car was for every mile.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you're one of those lawn care businesses that hire illegals? Boohoo.
So the federal government is spending tax money (that it doesn't really have, and so must borrow) to subsidize the purchase of electric cars, and now that there are more of them, this cuts gas tax revenue to the states. That old saying about good intentions and roads comes to mind....
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Why is 100% of the discussion around this focused on regressive taxation schemes like gas taxes or per-mileage taxes or per-vehicle taxes? Why is it when we talk about roads, suddenly all the established facts around taxation structures go out the window? Regressive taxes cause society to stratify and over the long term break down. Progressive taxes cause society to build a strong middle class and enable class mobility. So why does nobody ever simply make road maintenance like all the other government functions and fund it from income taxes with progressive structures?
And don't talk to me about "flat taxes". There is no such thing, flat taxes are inherently regressive due to two factors. First, cost of living. Second, the power of money grows exponentially. If you have twice as much money as I do, you can do way more with it than two of me can do. If you have ten times as much money as I do, you have far more than ten times as much flexibility in what you do with it. You can buy more expensive things than are available to me, you can spend as I do but get twice as much, or you can invest it for higher returns than I can get. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, the social power you get with money is non-linear. Rich people end up getting more for free than poor people do, they get favors and grants in disproportionate amounts.
After reading a number of the comments, a couple points seem to be missed:
- There are large hybrid cars like the full size SUVs from Lexus, large sedans like Accords and Camrys, and CUVs like Ford Escape. If weight is the enemy, these "efficient" vehicles are doing more road damage than the Fiat 500, Subarau BRZ, or even a non-hybrid Accord or Camry.
- While big rigs do a majority of the damage on major roads, road repairs also need to be done on the multitudes of residential and side streets that big rigs don't drive upon. That damage is almost exclusively environment and personal vehicles.
Speaking as an Oregonian, I think this is a decent stop gap. Not a final answer, but an interim solution to deal with the continuing evolution of the personal auto. It doesn't penalize hybrid owners, it decreases the discount that the state is already giving hybrid buyers for purchasing the car. It also goes after cars, like hybrids and EVs, that are paying less in road repairs but are creating more damage compared to like cars due to their increased weight (e.g. Volt vs. Cruze, Accord/Civic/Camry hybrids vs. non-hybrids of the same cars).
getting too many campaign contributions and "consulting" from oil cartels and other conglomerates.
Socially and Environmentally Responsible Citizen: "I can do my part to reduce my carbon footprint by driving this alternative energy powered vehicle"
Enter Sociopathic Lawmaker
Lawmaker: "It puts the gas in its tank or it gets the tax again"
This crap isn't new. Hobbyists and inventors have already been threatened with jail time for tax evasion by using home brewed biodiesel because they didn't understand the regulations regarding fuel tax.
And if we are so concerned about people using roads without paying for the infrastructure, what about all those tax-evading pedestrians, cyclists, and wheelchair operators that using public sidewalks everyday. They should all be required to strap on GPS mileage loggers and pay their tax share as well. Same goes for all those brats getting a free education. They should all get a bill upon graduation for the cost of their schooling unless they pay for their own private education or get homeschooled by their mommy. Why force childless property owners to pay for others self-indulging personal development when nowadays a high school grad with a year and a half of college ends up in a career waiting tables when the previous generation could wait tables just fine without a high school diploma or a college degree?
OK - I'll stop before I go to far - I think the tea baggers will try to grab onto my cynical satire and use my bogus arguments as talking points at their next book burning ceremony.
How about we make higher quality roads instead of paying unions to do a shit job and then tear the roads up again every few years?
Seriously, Chicago just had a few major highways repaved a few years ago. Already falling apart...
I don't understand why this doesn't come up more often when we talk about transportation taxes. Build ROADS that withstand stresses better. Sure, it puts a few guys with shovels out of work, but that's progress... let's get out of the stone age with roads.
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It would be simple, and match the increase in gas prices and mileage standards, all while not creating some perverse disincentive to green vehicles.
The people you want to tax, who drive $60k suvs could give a shit less what gas costs.
Well then, if they could give a shit less, then it is not being taxed enough.
Citation
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Knowing Oregon, and some other nearby states, I'll bet that "transportation costs" includes everything from public art to free mass transit for downtown hobos.
Perhaps the first step when dealing with a revenue base tied to road usage is not to incur expenses not related to that revenue source.
To legislators and authorities east, west north and south - we don't want to be squeezed anymore. There will never be "enough" money, ever. It's a property of our system - to fill all gaps like an ideal gas. Some genius, for instance, suggested recently to tax the bicycles in Amsterdam because the city hall needs more money. I'll not try to explain why this is the stupidest idea of the century, so here comes my greeting:
Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Should five per cent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah I'm the taxman
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Don't ask me what I want it for
If you don't want to pay some more
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
Now my advice for those who die
Declare the pennies on your eyes
'Cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman
And you're working for no one but me.
The Beatles
That's right, hippies. Your ego-friendly smart cart which sips fuel (if it uses petroleum fuel directly at all) is depriving the hard working government of your state of much needed revenue. Get with the program!
(Wanna bet you'll have people falsely reporting/failing to report this information?)
The point of fuel taxes is that it's supposed to roughly translate to road use and wear, so as to (hopefully) reflect the costs of necessary road repair and upkeep work done. If there's no revenue, no work can be done. This is an interesting stop-gap but I have to wonder how long it will last. There's no realistic way to track it. They're going to have to put it on something like vehicle registration: register a gas sipping vehicle, you get a bill in the month for a "minimum" number of miles driven each month above and beyond.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
If I drive outside of Washington state and fill up in Washington state, they've effectively taxed my driving out of state.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
see i just had this argument with someone a few weeks back i said it does not matter if cars got awesome gas mileage they will just raise gas prices and there it is. why you think they jacked disle prices so high because bmw made a clean burning disle a few years back that got 50 mpg. before that it was cheaper then unleaded. it keep buyer and maker away from it despite it getting better mpg and with modern tec burn cleean. because the epa hates it.
Why not simply increase the cost of car registrations and decrease the tax on fuel? If everyone pays for car registration (I'm assuming it's illegal to drive an unregistered car), the tax is evenly applied and by decreasing the tax on fuel it doesn't penalise less fuel efficient car owners in the process.
Better yet, to create an incentive for people to switch to more economical options, why not stagger the tax reduction on fuel so it returns to present day level over a period of time, therefore making a less fuel effiicient car slightly less economical to run or own over a gradual period.
If that doesn't sound workable, why not simply hike the registration cost for fuel efficient cars, so the owner pays a bit more up front?
If they would just ban the use of studded tires they wouldn't have to replace the roads every fucking year.
Yes, it pisses me of, in case you were wondering.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Tax cars at a rate of $10,000 per vehicle, but allow owners to pay off the tax slowly. How slow? $100 is due at each 10,000 increment until the tax is paid off (i.e. 1 million miles), with taxes deferred for any mileage driven when the car is not registered in the state or when it is registered with a salvage or other "non-driving" title. "Taxes deferred" just means you will have to keep paying taxes after the millionth mile until the full $10,000 is paid off. If the car is permanently junked or permanently moved out of state, then the taxes are "deferred forever."
Convoluted? You betcha. But it's just like gas taxes in that it's effectively taxing miles driven in and out of the state even if on paper, and in legal terms taxing something else entirely.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The idea of taxing people for being fuel efficient is one of the most stupid ideas if seen come out from the US recently (and there are a lot of stupid ideas from that part of the world).
Every other part of the world is raising taxes on fule usage to encourage people to be more economical, but the US has to try and do it the other way round. Why not tax people who don't smoke as otherwise you are not getting any revenue from them through the tax on tobacco products.
I pay 61.129c NZD per litre petrol tax. That's $1.90USD/gallon.
That's on top of 15% sales tax.
Unbelievably stupid idea. I'm sorry to the citizens of the USA, but is it any wonder that most of the rest of the world thinks that your country is populated, at least 50%, by morons? Global warming? Peak oil? Pollution? Oh wait: Intelligent Design. God will no doubt save you.
Professional Idiot
By rising gas tax you make new tech more attractive, gas guzzler become a pain in the ass to pay gas for. But as a side effect , firm which depend on gas and do not get gas tax rebatte get shafted. American gas guzzler car are less attractive and foreign car more attractive. So this has a negative impact on economy. So rather than have all the above effect , they shaft the new less-gas-using things, and let the gas guzzler, well , guzzle. In fact a gas guzzler pay more for gas , but willpay LESS in tax for the same mileage. Let us say you have two very extreme car a 60 miles per gallon car, and a 20 miles per gallon car. They both drive 6000 miles in say a week or two in the state. At 1.56 cent per miles with the new tax they pay both 9360 cent or 93,6$. But before the gas guzzler had to eat 300 gallon the economical car 100 gallon. At 30 cent tax per gallon, the economical car paid 30$ the gas guzzler 90$. The gaz guzzler tax stay the same roughly, but the economical car suddenly pay 3 time the tax it paid before.
Color me unsurprised. I am willing to bet my last shirt that some asshole lobby from the oil/car industry at some point influenced the legislative process toward such a complicated solution penalizing good gas mileage car.
Seriously, this is the only real option. Anything else and they'll just have to monkey with the system again in ten years as cars become even more fuel efficient.
That seems like a good thing. I don't see the problem. Raise taxes a bit, cars get more efficient, then raise taxes again a bit. It's about the same amount paid each year but with this approach you get more and more efficient cars.
The main reason why mileage is going up is NOT due to having radically different engine designs with high MPG, but mostly due to lightening the loads in the vehicles. Unibodys are much lighter than the old truck chassis. Likewise, using aluminum and plastic instead of steal lowers the weight. Finally, moving from large 6 passenger cars to small 4 and even now 3 or 2 passenger vehicles means small LIGHT cars.
A light car does not use up the roads the ways that a massive truck or suburban does. Those will put a large load on each tire, which digs deeper into the roads. Take a turn and it removes both tire AND road surface.
Now, if you wish to point to electric and NG vehicles as not paying, well, you would be right. However, these are such a small number and will remain such, that it is foolish to change the system for these. However, even these can be taxed at the right time. Electric cars are efficient when charged at night. If somebody is charging in the daytime, it actually costs ALL OF US money to charge that. The reason is that it will put a larger demand on the electric system. So by putting a tax on auto electricity from commercial systems during the daytime, we can encourage electric cars to charge at night as well as match the vehicles to the demand.
If these lawmakers really want to tax the users that cause the most damage, than they should simply increase taxes on fuel. In addition, to keep the states from battling it out with neighboring states, the tax on diesel should be increased and handled by the feds for the highways and infrastructures. The fact is, that semi trucks do the vast majority of damage to roads, not lightweight cars.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It currently does just that. MPG is largely a factor of larger vehicle size (aerodynamic drag is larger) which is a larger vehicle weight. As such, MPG will decrease for the larger vehicles and they will pay more in increased fuel. As such, they should stay with this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Look, it isn't difficult.
Add a state tax on fuel to make up your "shortfall".
It won't cost to collect because it uses the current system to collect the money.
I know this means you can't go tracking where everyone goes, which is a shame.
and not Natural gas.
But for those that use the argument of electric vehicles, there is an easy solution to this. Skip worrying about those that charge at home. The reason is that if they charge at night, they actually LOWER ALL OF OUR ELECTRICITY COSTS. Yes, by charging in the middle of the night, power companies are able to run their base load systems at a higher rate, and more importantly, when they do build new plants, it will be base load systems, as opposed to more expensive day-time on-demand systems.
So, where and when should you tax electric cars to pay their way? When they charge in high demand times. Basically, the more cars that charge in daytime, and the more that it will cost ALL electric users. Charging in the daytime at a home is expensive. The reason is that most home owners of electric cars get price breaks during the night time. During the daytime, they pay full price. BUT, the commercial stations, such as at walgreens, should be charged a tax for day-time usage. Interestingly, all of the systems, have the ability to do just that. IOW, taxes can be added to those commercial systems, and can be time based.
Natural gas, can also be charged at the stations.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
blame the congress/DOT, not the unions. It comes down to what DOT will pay. However, as one that grew up in Ill back in the 60s and 70's, Ill has ALWAYS had shit roads. ALWAYS. The reason is that they always did the minimum amount to get by.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A pedal-bike that has an electric motor is pretty cheap now and the motor will get it going 20mph on the flat no problem. You can still pedal (and likely have to uphill) and less effort in summer means less sweating. In winter, pedalling the less efficient bike will keep you warm after the first 5 minutes.
And let the working poor that can barely afford an older, low MPG car BE DAMNED.
Some virtuous folks can't see past their six-figure salaries, I see.
They should also tack on an insurance surcharge surcharge surcharge and double or triple the cost of inspection. Upper middle class white faux hippie NPR listening wannabes should be thrilled to pay more for the common good. They're already paying 2 or 3x more for the same car as everyone else.
As a software developer for one of the leading electronic toll collection companies, I love this idea.
which are those idiots on two wheelers that pay zero for the usage of the king's highway, impede traffic everywhere they go, and ignore traffic laws at a whim. They need to be taxed to cover their fair share of the burden of having the roads maintained, their vehicles registered with the state, pay insurance to cover the mayhem they cause by their mere presence, prove they can operate safely on the road, and have a minimum mandated safety equipment(lights, reflectors, mirrors, etc) on their vehicles.
Farmers don't have lobbyists, unless you're counting Willie and the FarmAid crew. Only Persons like the world's most admired food production company use lobbyists.
Make your luck, spend a buck.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
higher prices for everything on the shelves at the grocery store, at the mall, or pretty much anywhere else.
God forbid that the tax burden should fall exclusively on the beneficiaries.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
No matter how many times I ask, it's a lottery as to whether I'll actually get the premium gas I asked for.
Good help is hard to find.
So let me get this straight. People that drive a hybrid are not paying enough to maintain the roads, therefore it is necessary to come up with this elaborate and costly to enforce tax. Which will also reduce the incentive to get a hybrid.
At the same time, Oregon provides a tax credit for everyone buying a Hybrid, because the government decided that people should have hybrids.
Maybe it is just me, but would it not just be simpler to eliminate the tax credit, tax everyone the same, and let people decide which is the best car for them based on whatever is most important to them, rather than more government distortions?
Government decided long ago to build a huge revenue stream based on gasoline usage, because it is defensible to the ignorant masses and high rates can be blamed on others (OPEC, etc.). Now the revenue stream is threatened and they are faced with having to create ridiculous rules to bolster it. The problem is, basing a broad tax on gallons of gas used as opposed to basing it more closely to what the revenue is actually used for. or something like that...
You could drive 50 cars and 10,000 bikes past and do less damage than a single truck.
More like 10,000 cars and an infinite number of bicycles.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
If you are worried that the taxes received from gas sales will go down, then just raise the taxes on gas. This will be very unpopular of course, but it does give the benefit of taxing the people who use more fossil fuels more and will push more people to use fuel efficient vehicles not less people like the per mile tax will do.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
as much as not having roads would.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Road in Oregon are pretty good, so I don't know what you are talking about.
Of course you don't really know anything about roads, so you will remain a clueless load mouth fuck.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
1.6 billion shortfall.
Oregon uses 45,000 MkWh a year.
45,000,000,000 kWh.
3.5 cent a kWh would solve this with the added bonus that it will also take care of electric cars as well.
Oregon, and many other places, have this weird tax the thing used ONLY for its support; which needs to stop. IN the context of services for society, it's really stupid to do that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You can't propose that we put heavy transports on specially designed (rail) roads designed to handle the load. That would cost too much.
Just like this silly idea of taxing truck fuel in accordance with road damage caused by trucks. That would make sending things by truck so prohibitively expensive that we might end up seeing a rail station in every down, with trucks used only for the last mile, simply because that works out to cost less than sending the shipment by truck the whole way.
You realize that would result in businesses choosing transportation routes according to their actual cost, right? What the fuck are you thinking?
How about we make higher quality roads instead of paying unions to do a shit job and then tear the roads up again every few years?
Seriously, Chicago just had a few major highways repaved a few years ago. Already falling apart...
And your proof that union labor was involved, or the source of the problem?
Oh wait, you'd rather just assert it.
I don't understand why this doesn't come up more often when we talk about transportation taxes. Build ROADS that withstand stresses better. Sure, it puts a few guys with shovels out of work, but that's progress... let's get out of the stone age with roads.
Actually, the problem would be that it'd put a few dozen corporate executives into the position of having to do the contract they received properly, as opposed to finding corners to cut in order to pad their paychecks.
Like, for example, the Ryan family construction company.
That's right, it's not the union shovel toter who is taking the lion's share of pork, but the person running the company.
Suppose it's possible to apply and enforce a mileage tax. Then the right way to do it would be to impose it equally on everyone based on vehicle weight, in addition to gas tax.
Now let's get back to the real world. When mileage readings result in significant costs, people will fudge the mileage en masse. The 'net will be full of instructions on how to do that for your particular car model. Many more will be driving around with huge wheels. GPS-based system? People will wrap them in aluminum foil every other day.
Other than raising the fuel tax rates, the only workable thing is to increase the annual registration fee.
Didn't Oregon just legalize pot? Tax the stoners 30Â per joint.
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
How 'bout a tax if you don't drive or drive less? You may still have to drive to/from work, but if you skip that vacation to the coast, that's a lot of gas-tax revenue that is lost. Since you're not paying your fair share, I think it's only fair to charge you "miles not driven" tax. How 'bout all those freeloading bicycle riders? They use the road and don't pay for it. Let's add a bicycle tax to that. Oh, and of course, walking tax. Jogging tax. Hopscotch tax. Skipping tax. Pogo Stick tax. Rollerblade tax. Skateboard tax. Any more ideas?
Accidents cause a lot of damage too, probably a lot more than studs.
I've passed through areas that disallowed studs (but I had them since I was from elsewhere), and actually avoided being part of multi-vehicle pileups because of them. The guy in front of me... no studs... well he joined the pileup.
If you have to change the rules every time you run into some new corner case then the rules were wrong in the first place.
They used to say they were using taxes to modify people's behavior to get them to do better things. The whole Sin Tax idea. Now they're taxing good behavior too. In other words, they're just plain greedy.
...and giving CSX and Norfolk Southern hundreds of millions of dollars to do it. One example is the multi-modal transfer facility being built in Montgomery County in southwest Virginia.
This sounds like the typical politician's waffle, failure to bite the bullet and try to pass their bloated payroll on to taxpayers, instead of being stern and advising the employees that they will need to reduce wages and benefits by 20%. This is better than laying off 20% of the employees.
They will find out that taxpayers can bite, and some taxpayers are rabid in their convictions, which can be fatal.
These inconsiderate oafs who walk our roadways and trammel our sidewalks need to pay their fair share, let's stick it to them.
You know the old saying: "They gitcha comin' and they gitcha goin'".
One should pay for the miles they wear down the road. Simple: each year when ones car is inspected the mileage is checked and sent to DMV which will in turn tax accordingly. You don't pay then that car should have it legal registration revoked.
A per mile tax is very likely to have unintended negative environmental consequences. Drivers of low mileage vehicles that would otherwise pay a lot of gas tax will certainly opt for the per mileage tax instead. The lower their gas mileage, the more incentive a driver will have to pay per mile rather than per gallon. So this tax will make it cheaper to drive inefficient cars. The driver can then afford to buy more gas and drive more miles than they could with a per gallon gas tax, with the concomitant negative effects on the environment, green house gasses, etc. Oregon will blaze a new trail in anti-environmental tax policy.
Big rigs are what damage the roads. If they pay for the damage they do it gets spread around to all of us and doesn't penalize all of us who try to drive efficient cars.
http://goo.gl/Meqg1
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
Americans talking about fuel prices and mileage, hilarious. You do realise the reason all your cars are enormous and get shit mileage is because there is no incentive for manufacturers to do otherwise? If you taxed your fuel at anything beyond negligible rates then maybe people would be more inclined to get smaller and more fuel-efficient cars. Yes yes, I know America is a big place and you need to drive long distances blah blah. Two things, nobody forced you to spread out over the entire continent, and nobody forced you to sprawl your towns across miles and miles of suburbs. "Hey let's build all our towns based on the automobile whose fuel prices will clearly never ever rise from these 1950s prices" derp
This is just one of the most incredibly stupid things I have ever heard. Even 'considering' this is just freakin' so stupid it boggles my mind.
Making cars more efficient is a desirable result. Having the owners of the efficient cars pay less tax is a good way to get that result to happen. More efficient cars are also, on average, smaller and lighter so they cause less wear to the roads.
Going to a mileage-based tax is a bad idea because it removes that incentive. If tax revenue falls too much, raise the tax rate to compensate. Yes, it will punish SUV owners - as it should.
I'm all late, but seriously, the way to pay for highways already exists and many states are already using it. It's called a toll road. You just need to charge hybrids twice as much at the booth. You just need to give them "loser" license plates so that they can be easily identified.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
What idiot thinks you won't end up paying both taxes??? Anyone?
THAT'S why "coverage was uniformly negative".
They should charge commercial entities , not consumer market, those semi-trailers cause the most wear and tear( and damage to these roads) are not taking enough of the cost, why should consumers have to pay for them. Considering cost of a hybrid car nearly 35k, which no consumer will pay regardless till they come down to 20k range, the consumer market is being hurt the most, added costs of vehicle monthly cost and being taxed on it as well hardly seems the right thing to do.