Oregon Extends Push To Track, Tax Drivers Per Mile 658
schwit1 writes "Oregon is moving ahead with a controversial plan to tax motorists based on the number of miles they drive as opposed to the amount of fuel they consume, raising myriad concerns about cost and privacy. The problem for lawmakers is that the existing per-gallon gas tax has hit a point of diminishing returns, as Americans drive less and vehicles become more fuel efficient. Economists and civil libertarians are concerned about the Oregon pilot project in large part because some mileage meters can track and record residents' every vehicular move. Rick Geddes, a Cornell University professor, said the basic device is okay because it is simply attached to a vehicle's computer, which cannot track locations. However, Geddes said privacy concerns could resurface should governments expand the program and use SmartPhone or apps to track movements and reward motorists who avoid congested roads and drive during off-peak hours. Mark Perry, a University of Michigan scholar, says the GPS or 'black box' system is 'particularly untenable.'" Per-car tracking and taxation has been a long time coming in Oregon, and it's not the only state where such an idea's been floated.
Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
why we're trying to over-complicate this? Take the odometer reading at annual inspection and be done with it.
Will there be corner cases where someone gets screwed under this system? Sure.
Is it worth all the trouble, expense, and privacy violations of being 100% perfect when 80% is good enough? No. Not even a little.
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This.
They could check the odometer reading when you get your annual inspection.
Or when you get reregister your car. If the tax is reasonably small, people won't try to avoid it.
Re: (Score:3)
I suspect you're thinking of California.
Re: (Score:2)
Also Texas. I assumed some kind of annual car inspection would be common.
Interesting that they don't have them.
I guess if you don't already have the infrastructure in place then adding a device would be the way to go.
Re: (Score:2)
Also Texas. I assumed some kind of annual car inspection would be common.
Interesting that they don't have them.
Mechanical malfunctions and bad lights are a factor in less than 1% of accidents, and safety inspections have been shown to be ineffective at reducing even that small amount. Many states have never done safety inspections, and many others have eliminated them. They are a hassle for drivers and completely ineffective at reducing accidents.
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:4, Informative)
California has a bi-annual smog inspection. Smog inspections have been shown to be very effective at reducing smog.
Hybrids and electric cars are exempt [dmv.org] though, along with several other alternative fuels, really old cars (older than 1975 and still running), and new cars less than six years old. So CA only gets the data on older cars that are using the "usual" amount of gas.
If California were to implement the plan that Oregon is looking at, they wouldn't be able to use the smog inspections, because the segment they want to add is the same segment that's exempt from inspections.
Re: (Score:3)
Huh..and to think I've been wasting my time getting an annual inspection in Texas every year. I do get that nice window decal though, so I guess it's not all bad.
Re: (Score:2)
I was wondering that when I read it but figured since I don't live there and the GP mentioned it then Oregon must have inspections.
In any event - that "solution" certainly won't work for all states. Here in SC we got rid of them ages ago (I'm thinking close to 20 years ago) and I know a lot of other states don't have them either.
Re: (Score:3)
No annual inspections, nor inspections when renewing registration.
I suspect you're thinking of California.
Then let car owners self-report mileage every year when they renew their registration. Do random inspections of some small percentage (or send them to a service station for inspection) with a high enough fine for under-reporting to make it unattractive.
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cars are renewed every 2 years in Oregon and I suspect a lot of cars change hands during a 2 year period. Who ends up being responsible for the tax?
I don't know how titles work in Oregon, but I have to report the current odometer reading when I sell a car in California. Even if that's not required in Oregon, it seems like a simple way to take care of change in ownership.
Re: (Score:2)
This.
They could check the odometer reading when you get your annual inspection. Or when you get reregister your car. If the tax is reasonably small, people won't try to avoid it.
In Oregon, the gas tax is 30 cents per gallon. If you drive 12,000 miles per year and get 25 miles to the gallon then you pay over that year about $150 in gas tax. Would people pay $100-200 for the annual inspection to cover the inspection and the road usage tax?
Re: (Score:2)
We are talking politicians here. What else do you expect? Unless, of course, they don't want to tax your out of state driving.
Although, I suspect that they are more interested in being able to track your movements. "You drove for 1 hour on a road with a speed limit of 55. Yet you went 70 miles. Here is your speeding ticket. Pay up."
Re: (Score:2)
Unless, of course, they don't want to tax your out of state driving.
Most states already manage to charge "Use Tax" on out of state purchases - I can totally see them requiring a differently named but equally valued tax for miles driven outside of the state.
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even easier. Raise the gas tax. It'll increase revenue, easier to administer, and encourage even less use of gas.
Until we reach a world where we use zero gas to transport, this makes the most sense, since gas taxes are both a rough proxy for miles traveled and encourages less fuel use.
Re: (Score:2)
OTOH, taxing by mile should also include a vehicle weight factor, as lighter vehicles cause less damage to roads. This factor was already somewhat inherent in the gas tax as heavier vehicles tend to use more fuel.
In the end, treating out of state drivers fairly will be the biggest challenge
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Damage to infrastructure is proportional to the 4th power of weight [ucdavis.edu]; thus, we should probably tax something like
([miles travelled]/1000miles)*([vehicle weight]/1500lbs)^4
for vehicle registration. That would take into account the proper damage.
The average american drives 13476 miles [dot.gov] and the average fleet curb weight (in 2004, latest i could quickly find) was 3239 lbs [nhtsa.gov]; this would give a result of $293 for registration. If you drove the same amount in a vehicle half that, you'd pay like $17, and if you drove a vehicle twice that weight you'd pay $4466.
That would take into account proper damage incurred on infrastructure.
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Interesting)
This would mostly cause the price of shipping by truck to increase, increasing the costs of consumer goods, which we will all pay for. Why risk damaging the economy by increaing consumer prices when you can just raise the gas tax? Remember, when I buy a good that has been shipped by truck, I am benefiting from the damage that truck caused to the highway. It's not actually fair to make truckers pay the majority of the cost.
And who exactly do you think is paying for the damage to the highways if the trucks are taxed and prices increase? And how exactly would this hurt the economy more than taking it directly from the people?
Taxes hurt the economy. Period. But so do shitty roads. Some reasonable method needs to be used to maintain them, and realistically, gas consumption is no longer a fair meterstick for how much you cause.
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Interesting)
so EVs get to freeload..
In my state/city Grid electrical usage is taxed @19%.. Thus generating more revenue per dollar than gasoline or diesel. I.E 19% of $3.00 retail gas would yield $0.57 per gallon in state taxes
Re: (Score:3)
why we're trying to over-complicate this? Take the odometer reading at annual inspection and be done with it.
Because this fails under two scenarios:
Scenario (1) - Out-of-state drivers/cars registered out of state (e.g. university students who have Mom & Dad pay for registration & property taxes) driving into/through the state
Scenario (2) - Oregon residents who have the audacity to drive their vehicles out of the state
While it's not perfect, taxing gas has been a very practical approach to dealing with the tax issue. Now that we're looking at electric vehicles in addition to liquid fuel, perhaps a similar
Re:Can someone please explain ... (Score:5, Interesting)
A state cannot collect gas taxes for miles driven in another state. If you live in Oregon on the Washington border and do most of your driving and buy most of your gas in Washington then you're already paying gas and road taxes. If Oregon taxed you by your odometer then you'd be taxed twice for the same thing from two different states. That would be like buying something from Amazon and paying sales tax from the state the warehouse is in and again for the state you're in.This leaves you with two solutions. Either trust the driver to log how many miles they drive in each state or you install expensive equipment into every single vehicle to automatically track those miles. If you go with a device you also have to figure out how to make it perfectly reliable, impervious to GPS/cell blocking, and it has to be very cheap. When we had big satellite domes on our trucks the drivers would throw a metal pail over it when they wanted to drive somewhere without it being logged. You've got to create a system that cannot be defeated by something as simple as wrapping the module in foil. Do you really think we're going to create a massive system where everyone's car is inspected and scrutinized to make sure it's working? How do you tell that someone hasn't just taken the foil off right before going to have their GPS monitor checked? The bottom line is that you can't.
In the "old days" the driver would have to keep a log of his odometer reading each time he crossed a state line. That log came back to the office where someone would have to enter all those numbers into a spreadsheet and calculate the number of miles driven in each state. Those numbers then went to each respective state's revenue office where taxes were calculated, then we paid them. If he missed a number it was a pretty good chunk of work to figure out what it should have been based on his route and the previous and next odometer readings. Today it's a lot easier now that we've got GPS/Communications on all of our trucks. We pay a service to scrape the GPS data and auto-calculate the miles driven in each state. It's more accurate but it still isn't perfect but the states have agreed to just go with those numbers unless there's a big discrepancy somewhere.
Do you have any idea what it costs to do this? Do you have any idea the hundreds of thousands of dollars this costs a company to do for a fleet of just a few hundred trucks? For us we get so many benefits from having GPS and comms on a truck that it's worth it. We can monitor the ECM data and pull data like fuel mileage so we can spot a truck that's getting 3mpg instead of 5 or 6. The fuel savings there alone are huge. We can also monitor events like a hard brake so we instantly know if a driver somewhere slammed his brakes on. If it weren't for all of these benefits there's no way we'd spend the money it costs to do it all automatically and we'd still be collecting paper logs from the drivers.
This is one of those ideas that sounds great as an idea, but the reality is that it's impossible to actually implement.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, for one thing, you already are? If you buy commercially sold fuel, you are paying a fuel tax already.
I think you can get farm diesel but it's a different color and the hassle is enough you wouldn't do it unless you had a serious amount of driving on private roads. The current gasoline tax only runs about $350 a year for a 25mpg car putting in 20,000 miles.
Re: (Score:2)
Because it's not worth the time or expense to NOT tax you for driving on them when in the vast majority of cases private roads are going to be the exception rather than the rule. Ditto for out-of-state driving except in border counties in which case maybe you give them a % break as compared to someone on the interior.
I think meerling's comment that there currently is no state inspection in Oregon is a higher hurdle to jump; in that case, trade-off's aren't so clear.
I still think you come down on the side o
Re: (Score:2)
Technically you could run untaxed gas on private property, though logistically it would only be worth it if you used a LOT of gas.
BWJones circa 2005 FTW (Score:4, Insightful)
The top comment in that link to the California link is spot on. I just wish I could go back in time and tell him how deep the NSA rabbit hole goes.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=139566&cid=11681212 [slashdot.org]
Makes no sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not just put a tax on tires? Larger SUV tires pay more and bicycle tires pay the least...
As an Oregon resident, this seems silly and a complete waste of taxpayer $$$
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or they could pass a sales tax, like almost every other state in the U.S. Sure a lot of people would object, but would you rather have some weird device attached to your car instead?
Re: (Score:3)
There is already a tax on tires. Its insufficient.
Like gas taxes, it too is a point of diminishing returns, because tires last much longer than in the past.
The problem is tax at the point of sale (for gas, tires, etc) don't cover the cost of road maintenance,
(or so we are told), and will do so less and less as more vehicles become electric.
The feds have also been collecting about 18 cents per gallon which was supposed to be
used for maintaining the highways. Almost half of this is used for other purposes o
why not just raise the gas tax instead? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the intent is that people should pay some amount per mile to cover the cost of road maintenance, just set the per-gallon gas tax equal to $desired_revenue_per_mile / average_mpg. This has the same overall effect as setting a direct per-mile tax, without the tracking nonsense.
This will be "unfair" compared to a mileage-tracking system in that people with more fuel-efficient cars will pay less than their share, and people with less fuel-efficient cars will pay more. But that seems reasonable from the perspective of pricing negative externalities: maybe people who use more gas per mile should be taxed more per mile.
Re: (Score:2)
This will be "unfair" compared to a mileage-tracking system in that people with more fuel-efficient cars will pay less than their share, and people with less fuel-efficient cars will pay more. But that seems reasonable from the perspective of pricing negative externalities: maybe people who use more gas per mile should be taxed more per mile.
To a large extent, your use of fuel is proportional to your damage to roads. Lots of weight, acceleration and braking, will all put more wear on the road and at the same time use more fuel.
Re:why not just raise the gas tax instead? (Score:5, Informative)
To a large extent, your use of fuel is proportional to your damage to roads. Lots of weight, acceleration and braking, will all put more wear on the road and at the same time use more fuel.
Full electric or plug-in cars can use no gas, but they sure as heck don't have zero impact on the roads. You can start taxing electricity to raise money for transportation maintenance, but since electricity is used for so many other things that's hardly fair either.
It's a problem that has to be solved at some point as more and more fuel-efficient cars get on the road. You can propose other alternatives than the GPS tracking-type systems -- the most obvious being to just tax based on odometer readings, possibly with a factor related to vehicle weight -- but pretending that you can continue to just increase gas taxes and everything will work out isn't going to solve anything.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
To a large extent, your use of fuel is proportional to your damage to roads.
With some notable [wikipedia.org] exceptions [wikipedia.org], which use very little or no fuel (in the "cents per gallon taxation" sense). This was discussed in one of the previous near-dupe Slashdot stories [slashdot.org] mentioned in TFS.
If your vehicle doesn't use taxable fuel, Oregon wants a way to help you pay your fair share (to put it how they probably would). Or, looking at it another way, they don't want alternate-energy vehicles becoming a tax evasion method.
Re: (Score:2)
Because then it's "unfair" to the SUV-driving soccer moms and limo-riding corporate execs out there. It "unfairly" rewards hybrid drivers and those who get significantly more MPG than average.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, this exactly. A few things:
1) If the concept of higher gas taxes to pay for infrastructure (really just meeting previous tax revenues) is such taboo that your politicians are unable to sell the need for infrastructure to the public, you need better politicians.
2) Newer cars are getting better mileage than old cars, but in general larger cars that in general cause more damage to roads are going to pay more toward these taxes than the smaller ones. Corollary: this also functions as a tax incentive to u
Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Use taxes are aboutas fair as you're going to get.
Someone gets screwed in ever model, but you're going to have to break a few eggs.
You could avoid the monitoring if you wanted. Whomever does car inspections up there already knows how many miles the average Oregonian drives - and knows how many miles you drove since your last registrations if you have a history. Bill you your projected taxes based on average or previous driving history, and then fix any overages/underages in your next registration. Set a floor or a cap on the whole tax or on underages/overages if you think it makes for a better tax plan. ....and you can do it all without installing a black box.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Informative)
Also, I hate this crappy keyboard. :/
Thats a costly pain in the ass (Score:3)
just tax electricity. Everyone benefits from roads, and you don't need to track were people are going.
OTOH, Oregon is the bastion of 'We want X! what we have to pay for it? that's an outrage!"
Re: (Score:2)
personally i think we could start with transparent accounting of taxes that are already collected for road repair...
It's called an "odometer," you fascist assholes! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
What you describe is the actual Oregon program, except for step 3 where we combine having traffic engineers that prioritize projects based on need with dividing some of it by County.
The crazy-making in the article falsely conflates the pilot program, which uses GPS because they can collect the data more easily, with the real policy issue that we're debating here, which will use the odometer readings.
Re: (Score:2)
We're debating the article, which barely mentions odometers (and even then, in the context of being connected to a GPS).
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, you could spend a fortune to institute them, but the DMV can't keep up with their current workload as it is. Go there for one simple thing when the open, and wait there for hours. If you're lucky, you get out in time for lunch. (Ok, it's not always that bad, but it's still pretty much on target.)
Re: (Score:3)
Then start an annual odo inspection and use existing auto mechanic / dealers as the inspection points with huge penalties for fraud.
I'm not a fan of Virginia's safety inspections because I know they are pointless, but at least they let you do them, along with emissions inspections, at any number of local mechanic shops. So the infrastructure is built in and usually pretty speedy. That is as opposed to NJ inspections which at least in the 80's was a huge state run building with long lines that was dreaded
Re: (Score:3)
Another way to get a few more dollars from (Score:2)
the Oregonians who drive into Washington so they don't pay either WA sales tax or OR state taxes. :)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd support a system where we have both taxes, but the gas tax paid is refunded when you pay the mileage tax. I'd even let them refund any gas tax paid in WA.
It isn't that common. When I lived in Portland, which is only a few miles from the border, I never knew anybody who drove to Vancouver to buy gas. But certainly there are people who like to work in WA, and live in OR, because of the differences in income tax and sales tax. The good news is, the parts of WA with lots of jobs aren't near the border. So i
Re: (Score:3)
Inspection Time? (Score:4, Informative)
I am not from Oregon and maybe the laws differ, but in my state there is required yearly inspections where you get the little sticker on the windshield. I do not understand why one couldn't simply write down the mileage from the odometer once a year during your required state inspection, and that mileage is submitted to the state as the amount to tax you on? (You of course would get a copy of the form for your own records). Why have a device that tracks anything at all when there is already an odometer that does exactly what they want, track mileage! Use the existing services - mandatory state inspection - and bam, done. No tracking, no extra expenses.
Of course, I am not sure why you would want to tax mileage in the first place. I'd rather raise the gas taxes, and if people driving big 4-wheel-drive jeeps 1 hr each way to work can't afford it, then maybe it will finally prompt some rethinking about what cars we buy and how we do this whole jobs and commute thing. I would like to see more telecommuting, etc, for example. (But I would guess there would instead be an uprising from anti-tax people that want their big jeep rather than simply thinking basic economics, so probably wouldn't happen like this anyway).
Re: (Score:2)
Because not all mileage would necessarily be within the state. Even though your idea is a bad one, I do agree that it is a far better solution than tracking people.
Re: (Score:2)
Not all states require annual inspections. My state, for example, only requires emissions inspections (not mechanical inspections) every two years and only in something like five counties of the state.
Re: (Score:3)
What you describe is the real program we're considering; the "story" is a crazy fox news hit piece.
The GPS monitor is just for the pilot program, because it is easier to collect the data that way, and they want current data. It would be silly to wait a year to know how the pilot program is going.
The why is because of the shift to more efficient vehicles. Already hybrids are a major part of what is on the road here. There is bipartisan support for this idea, though it is early in the discussion, because on t
Partisan BS (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Oregonian I can say right away, this is a partisan biased post. It isn't the big bad Government floating this idea to take yer moneys. Rather, we have lots and lots of more efficient vehicles, and there is a strong cultural push to move away from Big Oil. So we want to have our tax structure set up so that it is ready for that; if everybody bought a hybrid today, next year almost no road repairs would get done, because we wouldn't have the tax revenue. And with the same number of miles driven, there would be the exact same need for revenue. So if we can succeed in tying those related things together, then we'll have a forwards-looking tax code.
As for the meters, that is just for a pilot program the real program will not use that, it will use odometer checks. If you've ever lived in Oregon, the idea that we'd require GPS trackers is really funny. Left, right, center, nobody would support that here. And we have well trained politicians because when they do something weird, we just put it on the ballot and over-rule them. And in the State Legislature, people who pushed bills that got overturned by the voters get primaried out... every single time! That is how you do it, people.
Note to editors: if the story is running on foxnews, you're pushing a biased partisan version that won't have the facts.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for the additional information. This seems reasonable.
Note to editors: if the story is running on foxnews, you're pushing a biased partisan version that won't have the facts.
Note to Aighearach: if the story is running on MSNBC, you're hearing biased, paritsan version that won't have the facts. FTFY
How are the numbers read? (Score:2)
How are the numbers read from the device that plugs into the car computer?
If it has a simple numeric display that the inspection agent reads and records every year, that seems to have little potential for abuse or privacy violations. But if they electronically read the device, then who knows what information it's reporting. It could be tracking every time you exceed the highway speed limit. Or might be tracking every panic stop. Or it could be recording how agressively you drive. Or recording what time of
"They just want your money" wins again. (Score:3, Insightful)
I predicted this kind of crap 20 years ago when I saw what the Netherlands did with LPG cars -- they slapped a tax on it such that you had to drive 20km a year to break even.
This supports the theory they just want the money, and environmental concerns are a red herring.
Never forget that parsimonious theory: they just want your money so they can turn around and spend it on you to your, ummm, cheers?
"But...but how are they supposed to pay for roads?". Thus do you fall into their trap. It's about encouraging behaviors to ameliorate the looming end of the world, isn't it?
How's that theory holding up vs. this one?
Re: (Score:2)
I predicted this kind of crap 20 years ago when I saw what the Netherlands did with LPG cars -- they slapped a tax on it such that you had to drive 20km a year to break even.
Is that a typo or are you suggesting that 20 kilometres per year is a major issue?
Re: (Score:3)
The Netherlands is small.
Positive ground vehicles (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Simple Solution (Score:3)
Geddes said privacy concerns could resurface should governments expand the program and use SmartPhone or apps to track movements and reward motorists who avoid congested roads and drive during off-peak hours.
Oregon (the body of people) has a reasonable case for wanting usage taxes to be based, at least in part, on mileage. The economic case makes sense, and there is a simple solution: Each time the data is collected, calculate the amount of money owed, show it to the driver for approval, and give the driver the option to retain the data for appeal. If the driver accepts the amount owed and declines the option for data retention, the data used to generate the amount owed is discarded -- never entered into the database.
If it is only about calculating the fees owed, then that is the only datapoint that needs to be retained once the driver has waived his right to contest the tax. Oregon gets to include mileage in its road use taxation model, and drivers retain the right to keep their travels free from government surveillance. Everybody wins except those with an ulterior motive.
Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm really curious as to the mentality of people.
Why is it that transit; for both roads as well as public transit always gets hit by people talking about pay per use. As if it is somehow natural and obvious that transit should be pay per use.
Yet, healthcare... oh no... for that it should be universal (I'm Canadian) or even in the US it should be covered under insurance.
Or education, it should be public and everyone gets it.
The irony of it all is that the cost to support transit and roads is miniscule compared to the costs of healthcare and education.
I'm in Ontario (Canada) and my province spends something like 40% of its budget on healthcare. Transit and roads gets a fraction of it all. Yet, when it comes time to budget. It's always... increase transit fares or put tolls on drivers...
Transit/roads is something people use day in and day out every single day. If there is such a thing as a public resource, transit and roads are it.
Yet, it seems these days everyone thinks it is 'logical' to that have it pay per use.
I'm not against various kind of pricing on things. But I just find it curious how transit/roads get tossed in the bucket of pay per use, but education and healthcare, which consume so much money get thrown into the the government should pay for it bucket.
What is this ... (Score:3)
1979 Landcruiser.
Oregon Voter Initiatives (Score:2)
Oregon Voter Initiatives are often controversial, but if they try and push this legislation through, It seems likely there will be a voter initiative to ban such tracking based taxation and it will pass easily. People don't like this sort of thing.
"Driving less" (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
IRS Solution (Score:3)
The gov already has an answer to privacy concerns like this. They have already implemented it. I do, for the record, dislike and distrust it, but, they have one: Seal the records.
An accountant friend explained to me once why a bookie he knows reports 100% of his income to the IRS, including the illegal cash business. The reasoning was simple, if the police suspect an illegal business but can't fully prove it, they can ask the IRS to check out whether it looks like you evaded taxes.
Now, the police can't access your records, the IRS, by law, must keep those records secret. However, they can, review and audit themselves. So, the police can tip off the IRS that you have an illegal business, but if you reported all the income, all the IRS can do is say "Everything looks in order".
So simple: Seal the records with a traffic tax agency, who is forbidden by law from releasing any personally identifying information, except for the purpose of prosecuting evasion of the taxes which they are charged with collecting.... say until.... 75 years after the death of the identified individual.
Then they will secretly share it all with the NSA, who will use it to send anonymous tips to law enforcement to built parallel evidence chains against people without revealing where the tip came from. No problem!
Mileage doesn't work (Score:3)
Mileage doesn't work because you get taxed when you drive out of state. GPS doesn't work because it's big brother in your car and it's a political nightmare. Refusing to acknowledge that non gas using vehicles cause wear and tear also doesn't work, especially as society shifts towards using more and more of them.
The reality is that every vehicle on the road has a certain impact. The only way to avoid double taxation for fuel with a mileage based tax is to simply charge a large annual fee for the license tab. You then couple this with repealing the gas tax entirely so that you aren't taxing people twice over. You could even make it affordable by putting the price into peoples taxes and letting people take payroll deductions so that they don't get hit with large fees every year.
You can then charge a given amount based on the weight of the vehicle. Using the weight of the vehicle is arguably the fairest way to do this as the vehicles weight is the largest contributing factor to the amount of wear and tear it causes to infrastructure. This way commercial vehicles get charged appropriately for the greater wear and tear they inflict while small vehicles that don't cause a lot of wear and tear get charged less.
Everyone uses the road system and it's only fair that everyone pays for it. Think about, what happens if the dreams of Tesla motors and similar companies are realized and were no longer using gas at all?
Re: (Score:2)
because than the government couldn't track where you travel every minute of the day. can't think of another reason unless someone's brother in law is the device manufacturer.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
The last one is the one I care about.
When did we stop counting the cost of government intrusion into our daily lives? When did people stop dismissing that sort of thing as flatly unacceptable? Is our need to try to force our neighbors to live the way we think in right so strong?
I shudder to think what this newfound love of intrusive government would turn into if the religious right retook the reigns of power. The same power given the government to turn everyone into good little progressives won't suddenly vanish if next the government wants to turn you into good little worshippers.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember in my state, when they advertised that the "new" seatbelt laws would not be primary reason for pulling a motorist over, they could only ticket you for not wearing a seatbelt IF they pulled you over for something else, and noticed you didn't have one on.
I think most people see the recent "Click-it-or-Ticket" ads on tv where they definitely say they'll pull you over if they see you not wearing a seatbelt.
Whether you agree with this (I wear my seatbelt)...this is a quick example of saying one thing to worn a law in with the public, and then soon expanding and changing it to allow more intrusion into your life.
Hell, these days the RICO act is being used in new imaginative ways not pictured when it was passed...and that's an old well known law structure.
I can surely see this tracking that is supposedly anonymous now....to be expanded (maybe with help of the Bluetooth article yesterday) to be used for real time tracking, I mean, would that be useful during an Amber Alert???
Golly gee...remember that both child abuse and terrorism are the new keys to the Constitution, and surely we'd be willing to trade a little more privacy for the sake of the children being abducted by terrorists, wouldn't we?
Re: (Score:3)
You missed the point about the example of seatbelts. It wasn't about the belts..but how they sold the law.
Originally, you could not be pulled over for simply not wearing a belt, they sold it that way.
Not long after, they changed the laws, so that merely not wearing a seatbelt..allowed them to pull you over.
A simple example of how they start a law in a limited way to pass it...then quickly expand the law to catch more people and more disparate behaviors.
Re: (Score:2)
Somewhere around the McCarthy era. Most definitely during Nixon's reign.
When did people stop dismissing that sort of thing as flatly unacceptable?
See above. Gotta watch out for the commies, dontcha know.
Is our need to try to force our neighbors to live the way we think in right so strong?
Yup. Witness the shunning and other measures of the Puritans and other interlopers to these lands. If you don't li
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because the (D) would NEVER expand upon (R) ideas of bigger more intrusive government at all (or visa-versa) ..../sarcasm.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Does the milage-based tax somehow imply the tax on the fuel itself would go down?
Don't bet on it. The only thing the government is less likely let go of once they have it in their hands, than power, is money.
Remember that Spanish-American war (1898) telephone tax? They held onto that for over 100 years.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
. . .
Don't bet on it. The only thing the government is less likely let go of once they have it in their hands, than power, is money.
. . .
Let's be very clear on this: Money IS Power.
This is not a figure of speech. Exactly what is money? You can define it by what it looks like and what we use it for but that dances around the simple truth:
Money is numerical denomination of power. If I have two simoleons I can convince someone to give me twice as much of something then if I have just offer just one. That "something" may be physical goods, time, or labor.
Money is a physical representation of power.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Interesting)
There are many non-intrusive ways to tax. Unless you actually like totalitarianism (and many people do these days), you'd pick the least intrusive way to provide the taxes to pay for the roads (which, frankly, are mostly paid for by the federal government giving money to the states).
Your knee-jerk totalitarian-friendly response actually scares me. Are you really so emotionally invested in giving the government ever more power to track us that you'd fight back against a less intrusive way to pay? Or did you just not think it through?
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Interesting)
The vast, vast, VAST majority of spending goes to administration. Most of that "administration" is used to administrate other administrators. The quantity of money that is used to accomplish ANYTHING by a government entity is nothing short of astounding.
A simple roadwork example: A public works engineer explained to me the cost of converting a simple 90 degree intersection of two 2-lane roads, from Stop signs to a traffic light. The bill for the studies, planning, engineering, purchasing, and installation?
[... wait for it
Total cost was $250,000
[... wait for it
in 1990 dollars.
People complain that schools don't have enough money. Bull! School districts get plenty of money but the quantity of administration has grown to the point where the majority of money goes to support the disproportionately large percentage of "administrators" who of course, because they are in positions of power, command higher salaries. And at the same time they don't actually educate a single child.
Think I'm exaggerating? Download the 2011-2012 report: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp [ca.gov]
Column "F" is the dollars that are spent annually per student. The statewide calculation works out to $8382 (cell F962). Figure a small average class size of 20 children and that works out to $167640. For that kind of money don't you think you could hire a well paid teacher, get a great building, fill the classroom with new books each year, buy cheap desks every few years, have a part time assistant, pay the electric bill, and in the end make one hell of a profit? Then to add to it, instead of just doing one room of 20 kids, do 20 rooms of 20 kids. If you couldn't siphon off an astounding quantity of money while vastly improving the service you aren't trying.
Well an astounding quantity of money IS being siphoned off by extraneous administration (which describes most of government). And it isn't providing anything to justify the burden to the taxpayer.
In reality class sizes are more like 30+ children ($251460) so we are really being bilked. BTW - This isn't hard to see if you are looking. I haven't been studying this or working in the industry. I found and calculated ALL of these numbers while I was writing this post so it isn't hard to figure out and see that we are being used.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, if you are working off the premise that gasoline taxes go towards maintenance of the roads, to offset the damage caused by those vehicles, then there should be no taxes on gasoline.
Leaving aside issues of axle weight and the wear on the road infrastructure, every time I take my car in for its smog check, the mileage is recorded along with the VIN and engine number. That happens every other year, and averaging that distance across the interval since the last smog check would give an average miles per day, which produces an annual miles-driven value for a per-mile tax without any ability to track the location of the vehicle. And for the inevitable 'but this doesn't account for the car being driven out of state' objections, neither does the proposed mileage meters; you can't tell where the car is being driven without being able to track where the car is. And this data is already being collected; there is no additional recordkeeping involved.
Re: (Score:3)
There's an immediate problem with simply recording the mileage and charging a flat 1.5 cents per mile.
For starters, Oregon's major metropolitan area crosses a state line. Unless Washington State enacts a similar tax, you're going to have a situation where people buy gas in Oregon (which will have cheaper fuel as a result of not charging per gallon) and being registered in Washington (therefore not paying the per mile tax). Or, you'll have people who are Oregon residents who purchase fuel in Washington pay
Re: (Score:2)
Or when they pass a law saying you have to put one in.
Its not a contract where you negotiate the terms by which you accept - if they pass the law then that's what you have to do. It sucks, and there's a lot of laws on the books that I don't like nor agree with, but to a large degree you just have to suck it up and accept it.
Re: (Score:2)
Or when they pass a law saying you have to put one in.
You don't have to put one in. If you don't like tracking, you can pay off the odometer reading. But if you put in the device, you will not be charged for driving on private roads.
This all seems really stupid to me. They should just raise the gas tax. Heavier vehicles use more gas, but they also cause more damage to the roads.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:4, Informative)
2 words: electric cars
Oregon has a $5000 tax credit [wikipedia.org] for electric cars. It is ridiculous to both subsidize and tax the same thing. Instead of trying to tax electric cars, they could just eliminate or reduce the subsidy.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:4, Informative)
the gas tax is going away as cars get more efficient. Yes yes, raise the tax you say and you can make it up. What about non-gas cars? Used to be so niche a segment as to not matter but very quickly it's going to be a significant portion. Plan ahead and make it a 'use' tax (and frankly I had use taxes, terribly regressive). Maybe have a minimum free usage of say 20k miles; tax anything over that. The gas tax is nothing but a crude tax on miles driven coupled by vehicle weight. Big vehicles usually get lower mileage and do more damage...hence they pay a higher tax than a motorcycle which gets 10x the mileage of a semi. The odometer combined with vehicle registration is all we need to accomplish this. No privacy implications at all.
Every time I bring up the "Use the odometer" statement, I get a rash of comments saying "That doesn't properly account for the edge case".
Re: (Score:3)
What's your point? You're already paying the gas tax for those miles now. No difference.
If a vehicle is not used on public roads, the gas is not required to be taxed. Farm vehicles and vehicles used on private roads can buy special purple gas that is not taxed. If you are caught using purple gas on a public road, you can expect to pay some severe penalties.
Re: (Score:3)
You're not paying by the mile.
Yes, it just so happens that the more miles you drive, the more fuel you consume
So, yes you are paying by the mile. With the added benefit that big vehicles pay more because they do more damage to the road. So not only are you paying by the mile 'now', it's also adjusting for vehicle size and weight.
Odometer + type of vehicle covers that exactly.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
Or they could just do like almost every other state in the Union and just PASS A SALES TAX. This is an example of the kind of shit that happens when you don't have an equitable and sane tax system and put too many eggs in one basket. By relying way too much on the gas tax instead of a more balanced approach, Oregon fucked itself. They encouraged people to use less gas alright (a good thing), but now they have to come up with crazy shit like this law to replace it.
Either cut costs or pass a small sales tax, assholes. Slapping some weird device on everyone's car is NOT the sane approach to the problem.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Informative)
Or they could just do like almost every other state in the Union and just PASS A SALES TAX.
I'm sure the more impoverished among us out here would really appreciate your suggestion. I'm doubly certain that all the stores in Portland (esp. those which sell large items, such as furniture) would appreciate seeing a huge drop in business from Washington State shoppers.
But, you know, unintended consequences and all that.
Incidentally, income and property taxes out here more than makes up for the lack of sales tax.
Now your cutting costs idea? I like that.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Or when they pass a law saying you have to put one in.
Cool, already have one. It's called an ODOMETER :)
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes we do have the power to change the system. Voting is not going to get that done, though. The only way to make any real change is through education of the general populace as to *what* the problems are. That's hard to do, but as you said, just because it's hard doesn't mean we shouldn't try. People get the government they deserve and right now, we deserve this government, sad to say.
Btw, nice sig.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They can put in a tracking device when they pay for:
- the device
- the power it draws
- the added gas the weight requires
- and a per mile fee for access to my private life
Or when ever they pass a law requiring it. No sense getting up on your hind legs and thumping your chest (while posting as AC),
because as soon as its required you know damn well you will install it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You know you can set those to any value you like right, with a set of tweezers? And there are always new gauge clusters to be had at the auto wreckers.
If the government did that with me, id simply have two gauge clusters and swap them out (takes maybe 20 minutes) every time before I had to go in for my evaluation.
Its already against the law to tamper with odometers [gotyourbackarkansas.org] if the intent is to defraud. Its also very easy to detect.
Re:This is why I'm keeping my truck for forever (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm willing to wager that if they tried that tack, the smug little hippies who suggested this little tracking device would quickly want it shut down.
I don't think it's the smug little hippies that are pushing for this -- they are already driving high MPG hybrids or Electric vehicles and enjoy making the gas guzzlers pay higher taxes.
As a smug hippie, I'd rather see gas taxes rise proportional to the average MPG of cars on the road. The higher the average MPG, the higher the gas tax, keeping revenue constant, and making low mileage cars less and less attractive. A weight based tax can be added to car registrations so EV and Hybrid owners aren't off the hook for road maintenance costs. Gasoline powered vehicles aren't going away for decades so maybe in 15 years they'll have to look at a mileage based tax again (and if self-driving cars become commonplace. they can self-report their mileage).
Re: (Score:2)
But your idea doesn't involve tracking people or increasing the bureaucracy.