I heard on the news this morning that Washington is going to roll out a pilot program to test a per-mile tax to replace the per-gallon fuel tax. I’m against it.
As many of you know, my office is 110 miles from my house. I only go in twice a week, but that’s still a lot of miles. That’s why I drive a Prius. Mrs. L.A. is a home health nurse, so she does a lot of driving every day. We are middle-class, and don’t have a great deal of disposable income. A per-mile tax would adversely affect our situation.
The issue at hand is that many people, like me, opted for fuel-efficient vehicles. Some chose them to save money on fuel. Others chose them to reduce their carbon footprints. Some chose them for both reasons. Unfortunately for the state, this means they receive less revenue from fuel taxes. Roads need to be maintained, and that costs money. The state has to figure out a way to pay for the roads.
I wonder: If people are charged per mile, will they then have less incentive to drive fuel-efficient vehicles? Won’t less-efficient vehicles increase our dependence on foreign oil, cause an increase in demand that drives up fuel prices, exacerbate climate change, and pollute our environment? In my casual observations, two groups tend to drive ‘gas guzzlers’: People who have a lot of money, and people who don’t. For the first group, a per-mile tax would be ‘a tax cut for the Rich’. For the latter, it will be extra money they can probably use.
All I can say is this: For those of us who are trying to reduce expenses, and especially for those of us who must do a lot of driving, a per-mile tax would be detrimental.
Would they really do away with the gas tax entirely? I haven’t seen the proposal.
I agree with Johnny L.A. that you’re taking away a big incentive to drive fuel efficient vehicles. (Our family has a Volt and a Prius)
I suppose my view would depend on the details. If the per mile charge was small enough it might make sense to add that in as part of the funding mechanism, so cars like the Tesla and Bolt don’t get “free roads.” Something like $0.01 per mile would probably bring in a lot of revenue, but wouldn’t be much of a problem for most commuters, especially is they also slightly reduced the gas tax at the same time.
ETA: In the “old days” in Washington, we paid really high car tab fees as a big part of the state revenue. I remember $600 to $800 annual fees, based on [state’s view of] the value of the vehicle. So, whatever they do now will probably cost less than that.
Since your vehicle isn’t powered by taxes, there’s still a modicum of economic incentive to have more fuel efficiency. You can drive 110 miles at 10 MPG and use 11 gallons of gas ($25-30, I’d guess, at current prices) or you can drive 110 miles at 50 MPG ($5-7). On top of 110 miles worth of per-mile tax, the latter still is cheaper.
People drive gas guzzlers because they think they can afford it, and nothing here really changes that. If gas costs matter to you, you’ll buy a lower-consumption vehicle. If not, you’ll buy something else.
This is, indeed, exactly the issue. People have responded to higher gas prices - in part brought on by taxes - by purchasing more fuel efficient vehicles. Well and good and a near-classic demonstration of behavioral economics.
However, many (most)(all?) states link their funds for road maintenance and building to the income from the gas tax. With enough people switching to more fuel efficient vehicles the amount of income from those taxes is either declining or not growing to keep pace with demands. Hence, the idea to create a tax that will collect the share of tax you’re avoiding through other means.
Or, in short, the state says, “Screw off, tax dodger! How dare you do the rational thing!”
It would seem a per-gallon tax is a better idea than a per-mile tax. The only thing a per-mile tax seems to address, other than being a general source of revenue, is infrastructure.
On a separate issue, how do they collect a tax on the miles you’ve driven? Would paying a mile tax be added on to your car registration renewal? That would have state agencies collecting a federal tax.
I see I probably misread the OP. When he wrote that Washington was proposing this tax, I was thinking it was a federal proposal. But I’m assuming he’s talking about the state of Washington.
You are currently paying almost 50 cents a gallon on state gas taxes. (I am ignoring fed gas tax for the moment, as I assume that won’t be effected at all by this.)
If your prius gets 50 miles to the gallon, then you are paying .01 per mile in taxes anyway, but another .03-$.04 per mile for the actual cost of the gas.
If they changed it so you no longer paid a gas tax, but paid a per mile tax, you’d be paying the same if it were .01 a mile, but you would still be saving money by having a more fuel efficient car. Even if they made you pay more per mile, you’d still be saving money by not driving a guzzler.
In any case, well, the fact is that the state does need money to keep up the roads, and as people are driving more fuel efficient vehicle, that revenue drops, and it needs to be made up somewhere.
Is it fair that if you were driving and electric car, you would not be contributing anything to the road fund?
I guess my question is who is this going to be enforced? Are you going to have to declare you millage when you renew your tags at the BMV?
I keep a spreadsheet to track my miles per gallon. My average miles-per-gallon is about 46. I generally have about 240 miles between fill-ups. (Often more, as it’s a 40-50 mile round-trip to Bellingham.) So 240 miles / 46 * 49.4¢ is about $2.58. If I were to pay per mile, it would be 240 * 2.4¢ = $5.76. So I’d be paying more than double the taxes I’m paying now.
This is a pure funding issue for highway maintenance - made more important as electric and fuel efficient hybrids increase market share. Makes perfect sense to me.
It will be tracked via a computer/gps module in each vehicle. Perhaps by the existing ODB-II interface.
Probably at some form of yearly inspection/registration. I don’t know if they would add that to our state inspection passing that burden on to them or create another Federal nightmare system of stations to handle it.
Modern odometers are harder to tinker with than say my 72 Pinto was. It isn’t impossible by a long shot (or so I have read – despite having two surprisingly low mileage Harleys – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) but it is beyond the average shade-tree mechanic to pull it off. Even most shop mechanics would end up busting stuff rather than accomplishing the goal. And then you always have the same fallback that got people caught 40 years ago; wear and odometer being so far out of synch that you get snagged or someone talking to the wrong person. So there may be a resurgence but in the end it won’t amount to much.
heh. Yeah, the last car where I “tinkered” was my 76(?) VW. I disconnected the odometer/speedometer cable, then reconnected it a year later for my state inspection. The mechanic scolded me for only putting on four miles in a year.
Are fuel-efficient vehicles really that lighter? A Prius weighs more than a Corolla. A Tesla S weighs more than an SUV. And they all weigh a fraction of a loaded semi-truck.
Lots of SUVs and pick-ups here. And commercial trucks are heavier still. Obviously, commercial trucks are not the vehicles targeted by the plan, but I can tell you that they cause a lot of damage to the roadway.
And this plan would seem to benefit commercial cargo vehicles–which often have MPG ratings in the low to mid single digits–the most despite the fact that they did disproportionate damage to roadways by virtue of weight and the sheer amount of miles they travel on state-maintained roads and highways versus municipal and country roads that residential drivers use more. Although the need to increase user fee revenue to support road maintenance and other highway infrastructure is probably germane (and will represent an increase in cost for the o.p. and others regardless), this seems like a very poorly thought out proposal unless it is graduated based upon some combination of GVW, number of axles, and applied in graduations to overall miles travelled.
How do you propose to pay for roads then? The purpose of the gas taxes is that people who drive more, have to pay their share of the road costs. Do you think someone who drives an electric or LPG car should get to use the roads without paying for them?