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Oregon Passes First Statewide Bicycle Tax In Nation (washingtontimes.com)
turkeydance writes: In Oregon, a state known for its avid bicycling culture, the state legislature's approval of the first bike tax in the nation has fallen flat with riders. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown is expected to sign the sweeping $5.3 billion transportation package, which includes a $15 excise tax on the sale of bicycles costing more than $200 with a wheel diameter of at least 26 inches. Even though the funding has been earmarked for improvements that will benefit cyclists, the tax has managed to irk both anti-tax Republicans and environmentally conscious bikers. The bike tax is aimed at raising $1.2 million per year in order to improve and expand paths and trails for bicyclists and pedestrians. Supporters point out that Oregon has no sales tax, which means buyers won't be dinged twice for their new wheels.
Obviously an initiative being pushed by bike shops in neighboring states.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
$15 per limb at time of purchase
Will $1.2M even pay for the administrative overhead for the state to collect and disburse the money?
When I buy gasoline for my car, I pay a tax which is used for the construction and upkeep of roads. I also pay a fee when I register my vehicle each year which goes to the same purpose. Bicycles don't consume gasoline, nor does one pay a registration fee, yet it does cost money to build and maintain bike paths. Yes, bicycles are more environmentally friendly and their use should be encouraged, but there are costs to supporting cyclists other than air pollution. Why shouldn't bicyclers pay their fair share?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
$15 per limb at time of birth, $60. Spiders have 8 legs, so they pay $120.
You can buy a Keep Oregon Weird bumper sticker.
So what you need to do is build better facilities (bike paths, etc) to separate cyclist traffic from vehicle traffic. Everyone benefits in that scenario, whereas discouraging cyclists means bot more traffic congestion and more competition for parking spaces. After all, even you state that the problem is too many bikes on the roads, not too many bikes per se. (and yes, it's spelled "per se", not "per say")
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Only lefties ride bikes? The rider I talk to most is a hard core right-winger leaving California as soon as he retires so he can shoot his guns without the damn government meddling in his business.
Sell them with no wheels. Wheels sold separately.
rewriting history since 2109
Compared to the same number of people in a car, they're WONDERFUL for the environment.
No they're not. A single bus causes more wear and tear on the road than thousands of cars combined.
The problem is not cars, the problem is gas emissions. Once that problem is solved properly, the world of mass transit will be disrupted as things like urban sprawl will become a solution rather than a concern.
lucm, indeed.
and the money will end up going to everything but new bike paths. A good 1/3 of it will be eaten up in paychecks and benefits for what ever little office that will suddenly triple in size because of the new money. That and the money will end up only in pet projects near the homes of the most powerful rather than in "best bang for your buck" projects that will actually be useful to the public at large.
The full saying goes: If it moves tax it, if it keeps moving regulate it, if it stops moving, subsidize it.
and not because we want to shave the whales. It's a regressive tax. Oregon needed more money and they couldn't get it from the rich in the form of income tax so they're getting it from the poor by taxing bikes. The $200 limit is obviously an attempt to blunt the worst effects on the poor (you can get a decent used commuter for under that) but it'll still hurt some.
The left want progressive taxation. This is regressive.
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but if everybody drove busses wouldn't the traffic be worse?
This is a non-issue.
Will the poor be affected? Not really; the law only applies to new bicycles, and the poor buy used. There is a massive economy in secondhand bicycles; I am a dozen blocks from a secondhand bicycle shop, not because I happen to live in a particular neighborhood, but because it's hard not to be a dozen blocks from a secondhand bicycle shop in the Willamette Valley.
Is this an unfair amount? Well, the same law in the same package also applies a tax to new motor vehicles, and it's 0.5% of retail price. A $20k car comes with a tax of $100. Nobody seems to be complaining about that!
I suspect that bicyclists are irritated that this tax is brand-new, smells like a sales tax, doesn't exist anywhere else, and seems disproportionate. I'd like to remind them that the extensive and amazing bicycle paths that cities like Eugene and Portland have are not free for the cities to maintain.
Make sure to read the law; it starts at page 187 of https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2017R1/Downloads/ProposedAmendment/12431
~ C.
simple solution add to the cost of gasoline! Joke aside, it would push more people into biking making state healthier!
Road damage goes by the 4th power of the axle weight. Increase the axle weight by 5.6 times, you get 1000 times as much damage.
A quick Google shows that 30,000 lbs seems a reasonable weight for a bus, on two axles *at best* you are at 15,000 per axle. For the bus to be less than 1000 times as damaging as the average car, the average car would have to have an axle weight of almost 2700 lbs. No way that's average.
So, yeah, a bus really *does* cause damage equivalent to thousands of cars.
http://www.pavementinteractive...
By definition (confirmed by observation), taxes disincentivize activity. In an age where cyclists are literally saving the planet, a tax on them, discouraging their use, is patently absurd.
Fuck those assholes.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Last I checked roads are public, those bikes have a right to be there as much as you do.
So why do they have to act like they have more of a right to be there than I do? Why don't they get over into the middle of their special lane, like I am legally required to do? (I already know the answer, they might get a puncture! boo hoo! I don't get to swerve into a cyclist because I'm dodgin' a pinecone.) Why do I have to give them three feet of extra space, just in case they fall off their bike or swerve into my lane? Why is it that if I obstruct traffic in my car I'll get a ticket, but the law explicitly instructs them to obstruct traffic in some ways, and they tend to ignore all the ways in which they aren't — like say pulling over when there are five or more people stacked up behind you on a freeway, at the earliest safe opportunity. For a bicycle that is almost anywhere. Here in California we have a bunch of twisty little highways through the trees and I've been stacked up behind a cyclist repeatedly on such roads.
Cyclists want to cry about how cars take up all the space, then they want to take up more space than they need before they even dry their tears. Wake me up when they have some integrity, I'll start listening.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They donating billions of dollars of their money to their own (and each other's) charitable foundations.
If they believed in Government, they'd simply stop arranging their affairs--including their donations to charity and especially donations to charities they control--so as to avoid and minimizes taxes paid.
In giving to their foundations, they are bypassing potential estate taxes later. The Government could have used that money.
In giving to their foundations, they are offsetting current income taxes with deductions for their giving. The Government could have used that money. At one point Warren Buffett had $30B of carry-over charitable donations. He will be using that to offset his income taxes for the rest of his life.
In giving to their foundations, they are donating appreciated stock. That is, they are giving away stock that was given to, paid to, and/or bought by them long ago at pennies on the dollar relative to current stock prices. I've no idea about the actual values, but for sake of illustration, let's say thatg 20 years ago Bill Gates was granted options for 1M shared of Microsoft at $1/share, now valued at $100/share (didn't check, don't care it just for illustration purposes). In stock option payments, he would have paid income taxes on the difference between the option price ($1) and the market price at exercise, say $2. So in effect he was given $2M in stock, for which he paid $1M, so there's a tax liability on the $1M difference. So he paid that and holds the stock to today and it's worth $100M (in my illustration, ignoring possible splits, etc.). If he sold that stock to fund his foundation, he'd have to pay capital gains taxes on $98M in gains. But if he gives the appreciated shares to his foundation, he saves taxes three ways. First, he doesn't pay the CG taxes. Second, he claims a deduction for the full $100M of giving. Finally, that $100M is no longer in his estate, and he's therefore bypassed estate taxes.
If Mr Buffett and Mr Gates believed in the effectiveness of government over the effectiveness of private charities, they'd stop doing these things and let the government get their full tax cut. Instead, both of these men work feverishly in their avoidance of taxes (perfectly legal avoidance). Further they do so completely ignoring the irony of their simultaneous cries for higher taxes.
Your definition of what is allowed to be compulsory charity is just as arbitrary as any other and not inherently true, like you think it is. Actually, unless you are a hypocrite you must follow your randroid beliefs to their only logical conclusion - defence from crime and enemies has to be funded voluntarily or not at all - after all, why should your neighbour be responsible for your problems - and if you cannot defend yourself you only get what you deserve. If I'd want to be especially cruel, I'd say, "just like your country right now" because by randroid logic you so much like you are worthless and don't deserve any help if you cannot pay for it out of your own pocket.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
That is a GREAT Madison quote! I like this one, too!
"The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -- James Madison, speech in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1794
But what did Madison know about the Constitution, he only wrote the thing...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Dude, the general welfare clause is literally right next to the common defense clause. If the government can steal my money to blow up brown people in countries literally half a world away it can sure as shit spend some of it on making my community a better place.
Jesus, how do these things get modded up? Theft is when someone take from you and gives you nothing in return. Taxation is what you pay to live in a certain society, and is paid back to you in the form of things that enhance your life directly, or things that enhance your economy so that you have MUH MONIES in the first place (see free roads.) If you have such a problem with taxes, you can elect representatives to repeal them, or take the ultimate libertarian option and move to the arctic circle.
I'm so sick of this childish fantasy that someone could squat in a shack in the middle of the woods somewhere with no utilities or roads and run a fortune 500 company if only the government would stop taking MUH MONIES!
Wake up, you were born into a first world nation that was willing to provide you with education and basic social services, and you are still choosing to live in and benefit from those services. If taxation is theft, then you are living off of theft. Period. Do the moral thing and move somewhere else more in line with your ideals. Like Rawanda or Hati, or some other hell hole where the government is toothless and you can be "free" to do whatever you want.
Modern libertarianism is just rampant greed disguised as a philosophy of government.
International concerns are a matter for the federal government. Making your community a "better" place is a function of your local government, not the feds. Think how much more money your community would have if it wasn't ripped out of your people's paychecks and sent to the swamp in DC to be squandered.