Taxing how many miles you drive in a season?

[Lanny Dean]

Mods,
Please feel free to move this if in the wrong area.

It appears that a few in our new administration are pushing for taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive, not how much fuel they use. See link below:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/lahood_vehicle_mileage_tax

Obviously this would/could affect those of us who log 20k-30k miles a season in a dramatic way. Without going deep into politics, it appears that the majority of the law makers and people who are backing the idea happen to be Republican. Now before you mods delete this post and before anyone shoots me any hate messages/mail please know that I am not trying to get into or start a political debate. I understand that we have many chasers who are of the Republican party. I am just stating that the majority of backers are republican.

As a small business owner this could/would be a potential blow that I could not recover from just as it would be for many others.
As for "chasing" as we know it, this would no doubt have an outcome that none of us could imagine at this point.

 

[John Massura]

According to CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/20/driving.tax/index.html

it doesn't appear that it will happen. I think the best argument against it is that if you tax mileage, it doesn't matter if you drive a Prius or a Hummer. Given our seemingly drive for better fuel efficiency, this non-action seems reasonable.

 

[Lanny Dean]

John,
you are right, it does not appear that it will happen....yet. Interestingly enough, there is much support for this crazy idea from Idaho through some of the Central States.
In owning/running a chase tour company, I am very afraid that this would no doubt kill the company, no questions, no exceptions.
I understand and somewhat agree with the need to cut back on consumtion of oil whether foreign or domestic, but taxing a quarter cent on every mile driven, to me is absurd.

 

[Dan Robinson]

It might not be that bad if, and only if, they repeal the taxes on fuel. If not, then we'd all be getting hit twice! Fuel taxes are already a huge chunk of the total price per gallon.

 

[Dan Robinson]

This actually may not be as bad as it sounds, especially if it replaces the gas tax. If the tax is $0.0025/mile, a 30,000-mile season tax would be $75. If they kept the standard mileage deduction, the end-result cost would be less.

Given a 350-mile range on a 17-gallon tank, that works out to around 86 fill-ups, or 1,462 gallons. The current federal fuel tax rate is $0.184 per gallon, which would work out to $269.

Unless my math is off (which it could be at this late hour).

The problem would be if the states started doing it too, which would have the potential to get messy. State fuel taxes are already higher than federal in most cases. Here in WV, state+federal is about 50 cents per gallon.

 

[David Wolfson]

As a long-time transportation planner ("retired") I will authoritatively argue that it's one of the dumbest ideas which won't go anywhere. The one exception which makes about one-half lick of sense is congestion pricing whereby travel within an urban center and/or at certain times is tracked and assessed a tax. Why in heaven's name would you want a regressive tax which provides disincentives for efficient vehicles, and would be wickedly hard and intrusive to enforce anyway?

 

[twarner]

This actually may not be as bad as it sounds, especially if it replaces the gas tax.

When is the last time the government ever repealed a tax? It is a stupid idea any way you might want to spin it.

 

[Jason Foster]

Same reply to topic as on EasternUSwx

There is a lot of cross traffic happening between here and EasternUSwx.com Forum...I keep seeing the same topics at the same time.

So here is just what I wrote there on the topic:
[quote name='WeatherWarriorMedia' date='Feb 20 2009, 04:28 PM' post='3608551']

The problem I see with taxing mileage is it targets those with lower income who already were forced to live further away because of lack of income. So the government will be taxing those who tend to commute longer distances so they can earn a little more money, while the wealthy who can afford to live near the urban core get the tax break, especially when they can drive only a few miles or have the option to take public transportation. That doesn't seem quite right to me.

I believe the tax should rest on those who feel that excess is a necessity. Tax luxury vehicles and bring back or make more restrictive the gas-guzzler tax.
[/quote]

 

[Chris Nuttall]

MOD NOTE: There's been a lot of threads lately that have turned political, including this one. I'm going to close this thread because it is political, and I want to stop stuff before it starts.

Guys, please let's keep politics out of ST. I personally hate politics, but I know several here like to talk about it and can get quite passionate. I respect that, but ST is not the place to be getting political.

Thanks.