California looking to impose a tax per mile driven

[Cerb]

Obviously older cars would be exempted from the new program, and as I said, it'd need to be implemented the same way nationally. The trick would be how to get the petro tax revenue from the older non-GPS'd vehicles while not penalizing the new GPS vehicles.

I'd be fine with an odometer reading strategy, however, I don't know how money is going to be allocated to states with large cities along/near state lines (that'd seem to be the primary problem with such a strategy), plus you have the fraud concern (odo rollbacks). Solve those two problems and it would be a lot better than a GPS solution.

You don't work for a radio or GPS systems company, that likes government contracts, do you? Fooling or faking odometers in modern cars is not the easiest thing to do, and very few people would bother, anyway. I have a hard time believing that, unless the rates were high enough to make people flee, that it would be worth it for all but the handiest, with much older cars. Meanwhile, a GPS tracking system is big money, and will cost more than initially projected.

Why would it penalize them more? Set a rate where an average commuter isn't going to be destroyed by their monthy/yearly tax burden, yet, truckers whose trucks do the most damage will pay their fair share.

At the least, this would require several sets of rates, to be fair, as truckers (and municipal vehicles, like streetsweepers, garbage trucks, schoolbuses, etc.) cause more damage per mile driven than a car. Now then, in doing that, you're also increasing the costs to do business for contractors and other small businesspeople, directly.

Sure, prices go up, and a balance will be made, but it won't be one that anyone having it put upon them will be content with.

 

[WackyDan]

Except, of course, that a per-mile-driven tax is going to penalize regular commuters far more than commercial users, despite those users doing more damage, and you can bet that utilities and municipal vehicles will be able to get exemptions.

Commercial vehicles already pay heavy road tax (tractor trailers), and their function and ability to deliver goods via the infrastructure stimulates the economy, adds jobs, etc so there is a benefit there versus a single person commuting in a car by themselves... Additionally the utility vehicles are out on the roads for the good of public (wouldn't a liberal agree?) - fixing down lines, providing upkeep to important infrastructure.

Just a different way of looking at it.

 

[chucky2]

You don't work for a radio or GPS systems company, that likes government contracts, do you? Fooling or faking odometers in modern cars is not the easiest thing to do, and very few people would bother, anyway. I have a hard time believing that, unless the rates were high enough to make people flee, that it would be worth it for all but the handiest, with much older cars. Meanwhile, a GPS tracking system is big money, and will cost more than initially projected.

I work for a really big telecomm, so yes in some way I'm sure my company would benefit. I'd be fine with the Gov though telling the telecomms 'You will do this at cost or below cost and live with it, now, go back to raping people for cell service'. I like it when my company does good, but, not at the expense of the nation. Nation comes first.

As far as faking odometers, most are electronic (at least in all the newer cars I've been in in the past few years). I have little doubt that if we went to a odometer based system, there would be massive more amount of odometer fraud than there is now.

I really don't care which system we have, I have no real personal skin in the game (the average US citizen is so hopelessly addicted to the crack that is cell wireless, something like this wouldn't matter in the least as far as bonus is concerned for me).

At the least, this would require several sets of rates, to be fair, as truckers (and municipal vehicles, like streetsweepers, garbage trucks, schoolbuses, etc.) cause more damage per mile driven than a car. Now then, in doing that, you're also increasing the costs to do business for contractors and other small businesspeople, directly.

Sure, prices go up, and a balance will be made, but it won't be one that anyone having it put upon them will be content with.

Absolutely there would be different tiers. We wouldn't want to charge a Honda civic the same as a Ford F-350 even though they drove the same exact route. Nor charge the F-350 the same as the 18-wheeler on that exact same route. Everyone would have different rates for their vehicle, same as we have now basically, given that the Honda uses less petro than the F-350 which uses less petro than the 18-wheeler.

Whether people are content with it or not really matters not to me. It's whether it's fair.

We should have a system that can fairly handle all means of vehicle propulsion. If I have a fully electric car that can go 300 miles between 5 minute chargings, our road tax system needs to cover that.

If I live in Fairview Heights, IL in St. Clair Co., which is right next to St. Louis, MO, we need to have a system that gives money for my fully electric vehicle travel, which I use only in IL and never go to MO, to IL. My neighbor who has the same vehicle, who goes to MO all the time, and addition in IL, needs to have those funds appropriately split.

How is the odometer based system going to handle that?

Chuck

 

[Cerb]

How is the odometer based system going to handle that?

If my vehicle is registered in the other state, it shouldn't. The people that live there need to figure something out, and/or apply additional taxes on services directly used in their state.

 

[Lithium381]

If my vehicle is registered in the other state, it shouldn't. The people that live there need to figure something out, and/or apply additional taxes on services directly used in their state.

but then if you were registered in that state and took a day trip out, you'd be taxed in theory as if you'd driven in state, if you're looking purely at the odo reading

 

[chucky2]

If my vehicle is registered in the other state, it shouldn't. The people that live there need to figure something out, and/or apply additional taxes on services directly used in their state.

So MO is going to have to handle the road work for all the wear that IL traffic does to their roads? F that (and I live in IL).

About the only other thing I can think of is a toll based system but setup all over rather than just select highways. We already have license recognition for toll violators, so that's handled (mostly). Now though instead of just on select highways, the system is setup on Main St. of every town, all over.

That doesn't sound very efficient...

 

[Cerb]

That doesn't sound very efficient...

If the state has its own income tax, that would be efficient. Or, sales taxes. Seriously, roads need upkeep. Where taxes come from matters not in the sense that certain users should be penalized, but that the lower economic tiers need to be exempted from over-taxation. The necessary taxes should be distributed as widely as possible, to reduce everyone's individual monetary input, and to cause those with more money to spend to be the ones putting in disproportionately higher amounts.

A big GPS tracking network would cost a fortune, and it would not solve the problem. The problem is not that they don't have a reliable way to track how far you've gone. The problem is that they screwed up their tax revenue streams.

If there's IL traffic causing damage to MO roads, then whatever they do, yes, it's MO's problem to deal with (interstates are, of course, a more special case). If the tolls cause too much of a burden, they should be rethought. If they cause some frustration, but reduce thru traffic, and/or increase revenue significantly, then they are doing good.

but then if you were registered in that state and took a day trip out, you'd be taxed in theory as if you'd driven in state, if you're looking purely at the odo reading

You don't pay taxes to be able to have a vehicle in the other state, and you don't pay for insurance in the other state.

If the other state is not benefiting from business being brought in by travelers from out of state, then they should implement things like tolls on major roads. If they are benefiting, they can get the money from secondary tax revenue streams.

When we have a straight democratic government, in which states are little more than counties, maybe something more would be workable. As it is, we don't have that.

 

[MovingTarget]

Poor people take the bus.

Nope, they walk or bike. Public transit (if it exists) is a joke in the vast, vast majority of cities/towns in the US.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

have to pay for that train somehow.

SAD but true

 

[Lithium381]

http://www.planetizen.com/node/57681

they're apparenlty moving forward with this even though it's getting little positive response from the community

 

[IGBT]

I hope it happens. It will cause massive outrage and tons of ballot initiatives to step on the neck of the eco-KOOKS.

 

[IGBT]

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/27/millions-flee-california-because-of-progressive-tax-system/

The California Manufacturing and Technology Association found in a recent study that 82 percent of companies surveyed did not consider California when expanding or opening a new facility.