# Per-mile tax **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 22, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764 "2017-03-22T15:23:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/61 "2017-03-23T16:47:19Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > You could institute a reasonably progressive state income tax, and then pay for road maintenance out of the general fund of state tax dollars. There seems to be this idea that we should (at least more or less) pay for roads based on “usage”, but we don’t do that for other government services. Public schools are mostly financed by property taxes, not some kind of head tax on children. We don’t charge residents of Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas special taxes to pay for the Border Patrol; or residents of coastal states special taxes to pay for the Coast Guard and the Navy; or residents of North Dakota and Maine and Washington state special taxes to pay for the military forces that exist to keep them from being overrun by the savage Canadian hordes. > > Roads are a public good. Everyone relies on them; even people who don’t drive presumably _eat_. > > And we could still implement gasoline taxes as a kind of “sin tax”, to reduce carbon emissions and dependence on Middle Eastern petroleum. In the real world taxation is some mixture of attempting to get people to pay the cost of things they in particular use v things where that’s too obscure and complicated to calculate. Plus the politico-economic dynamic of votes being evenly distributed (insofar as people bother to vote) but money, isn’t so naturally there’s a tendency to vote to make other people pay for things one wants (as in progressive taxation). But it still makes economic sense to try to attach cost to use. Which is relatively practical for road use. And has been mentioned a couple of times, use taxes would not be equal for heavy commercial vehicles but a function of miles and weight, so covers the fact that non-drivers use products delivered by trucks. Weight is only ignored for the small practical differences in effect on the road among different types personal vehicles. But OTOH congestion is more a function of how many private vehicles and how much they’re used. Likewise while structures like bridges are also somewhat more heavily affected by weight they also simply age, freeze-thaw damage to roads isn’t just about weight either, but how many lane-miles of road there needs to be, etc. So taxing those who use roads more for traffic system repair is not really like your semi tongue in cheek to outright joke examples. If there was as relatively simple and practical a way to measure the total effect of border control expenditures on various states…but there isn’t. Miles driven with a (large) add on for weight of commercial vehicles captures a lot, 80/20 type rule. And if people have to pay, directly, closer to the real cost of things, it causes better decisions, even when it’s political and not individual. Using general revenue collected by progressive taxation for roads and bridges gets you more ‘bridges to nowhere’. It’s ‘somebody else’s money’ to almost everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/62 "2017-03-23T17:14:21Z")
Of course we could eliminate state fuel taxes _and_ a per-mile tax if only the state would divest itself of its roadways and turn them over to private enterprise as the Free Market intended. _Then_ people could choose how much they’re willing to pay to drive on them, how much is a fair surcharge on food, Amazon deliveries, etc. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/63 "2017-03-23T18:31:56Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > I live in farm country and I’ve not seen any farm vehicles doing any more damage than anyone else to the roads. Have you ever seen a tractor like this driving down a chip-sealed rural highway when it’s 90+ degrees out? > **[John Deere US | Products & Services Information](https://www.deere.com/en/)** > > Explore agricultural, construction, forestry machinery, technology, services and more on the official John Deere website. Find a dealer in your area or purchase online. These beasts weigh 40,000 - 60,000 lbs. Are you saying these do no more damage than a 3,000 lb car with normal tires? ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/64 "2017-03-23T19:51:55Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Of course we could eliminate state fuel taxes _and_ a per-mile tax if only the state would divest itself of its roadways and turn them over to private enterprise as the Free Market intended. _Then_ people could choose how much they’re willing to pay to drive on them, how much is a fair surcharge on food, Amazon deliveries, etc. 😛 Isn’t that how the promised trillion dollar infrastructure plan is supposed to work? ---
**Author:** ![Orwell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/dfb087/32.png) [@Orwell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orwell)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/65 "2017-03-23T20:11:15Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Of course we could eliminate state fuel taxes _and_ a per-mile tax if only the state would divest itself of its roadways and turn them over to private enterprise as the Free Market intended. _Then_ people could choose how much they’re willing to pay to drive on them, how much is a fair surcharge on food, Amazon deliveries, etc. 😛 That’s how new toll roads have been built around the country. Not sure why it qualifies as " 😛 " . That’s also how original roads, bridges, canals and railroads were built. And utilities. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/66 "2017-03-23T20:35:36Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Nope, not joking. I drive through Amish areas, and always wonder why they aren’t forced to contribute to road maintenance. Where I live, in a small midwestern city, only one of our roads is a state route. I think 3 or 4 roads are considered part of the county system. All the rest of the roads are maintained by the city, which is paid for via income tax which is assessed on anyone who works here. We do get some money from the state, which presumably is from the gas tax, but that’s like $200k a year. In my extensive experience, Amish are not driving on interstate highways, and I suspect that is where most gas tax money goes. They do drive on state and county roads. But even in a highly-Amish-Populated place like where my grandparents live in Baltic, Ohio, they may be the most annoying things on the road but certainly they are a mere fraction of the total of traffic on state and county roads. So, assuming the Amish are paying income tax, as most working Americans do, and their income tax goes to road maintenance in the place where they work, then they do contribute to paying for roads in some fashion. If and when Amish do travel more extensively (such as on the highway), they are paying Amish Haulers who are driving cars/vans, and paying gas tax, and charging their passengers to cover it. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/67 "2017-03-23T20:47:52Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Of course we could eliminate state fuel taxes _and_ a per-mile tax if only the state would divest itself of its roadways and turn them over to private enterprise as the Free Market intended. _Then_ people could choose how much they’re willing to pay to drive on them, how much is a fair surcharge on food, Amazon deliveries, etc. 😛 Also not sure what’s ‘tongue face’ about that in principal. Where it’s practical for people to pay what the things they use, in the amounts they use them, actually cost it’s generally a good idea. Often it’s not practical. But it’s not IMO a question of some true believer ideology of the ‘Free Market’ v those who know to chuckle at it. As was mentioned, this has been found generally practical for electrical generation and distribution. That could be owned publicly. It sometimes is. But it’s not ‘tongue face’ to suggest it not be. If you have devices to accurately track mileage, and overcame the reality or perception that this was any more an intrusion than the proctology exam of an income tax return, IOW if you had what you needed to make a public tax by miles practical, I don’t see why it’s a joke for it to become a regulated utility funded by private capital instead. Granted, the concept even to levy a tax this way could fail if people are too sensitive to the privacy issue. Seems like an idea for heavy commercial vehicles though in any case, aside from any issue of who funds roads, instead of having to levy a single diesel fuel tax that covers the effects of all weights. As mentioned, weight’s effect on roads and fuel mileage isn’t proportional. People waste stuff you give them for ‘free’ at the margin. That’s a basic fact of human behavior. Sometimes that can’t be avoided in view of other considerations. Other times it can be. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/68 "2017-03-23T21:29:23Z")
I would be much more in favor of per-mile insurance rates. People who drive 40,000 miles a year have 100 times more risk exposure than a person who has an occasional need vehicle he drives a few miles a week, but pays exactly the same insurance premiums, which in some areas are as high or higher than the fuel tax. A single person who has two vehicles and drives one or the other, according to need, pays twice as much for insurance as the same person who has only one vehicle and drives exactly the same number of miles with the same risk exposure. (Less the multi-car discount, which is a trivial 10% or so) The last year I had a car, I paid over ten dollars a mile for minimum legal liability insurance. I didn;t even drive my car 50 miles that year. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/69 "2017-03-23T21:32:30Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Have you ever seen a tractor like this driving down a chip-sealed rural highway when it’s 90+ degrees out? > > [John Deere US | Products & Services Information](http://www.deere.com/common/media/images/products/equipment/tractors/four_wheel_drive_tractors/9r_scraper_special/9620r_scraper_special/r4d0067958-9620r-scraper-642x462.png) > > These beasts weigh 40,000 - 60,000 lbs. Are you saying these do no more damage than a 3,000 lb car with normal tires? Well they might do more damage, although the tires probably distribute the weight pretty well, they also are doing something useful that feeds hundreds or thousands, how does you running around in your vehicle rather than public transportation help anyone? ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/70 "2017-03-23T22:34:51Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > Well they might do more damage, although the tires probably distribute the weight pretty well, they also are doing something useful that feeds hundreds or thousands, how does you running around in your vehicle rather than public transportation help anyone? I’ll leave the philosophical question of how much we should subsidize food production to another thread. I posted my anecdote about road damage I see with my own eyes and you countered that you that you hadn’t personally witnessed it. I then countered with the type of tractor that I see damage the roads. If you believe those tires with huge lugs supporting 50,000 lbs don’t damage the road, I would like to know what you think DOES damage roads? :smack: BTW, typically when I see them I am out bicycling on rural highways. a) I’m not damaging the roads and b) I’m not paying taxes while doing it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/71 "2017-03-24T01:00:22Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > I’ll leave the philosophical question of how much we should subsidize food production to another thread. > > I posted my anecdote about road damage I see with my own eyes and you countered that you that you hadn’t personally witnessed it. I then countered with the type of tractor that I see damage the roads. If you believe those tires with huge lugs supporting 50,000 lbs don’t damage the road, I would like to know what you think DOES damage roads? :smack: > > BTW, typically when I see them I am out bicycling on rural highways. a) I’m not damaging the roads and b) I’m not paying taxes while doing it. 😃 Most of what damages roads is weather. ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/72 "2017-03-24T15:59:36Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > At least in PA, farmers can buy “off road diesel” for their tractors, which is not taxed. Some farmers drive diesel powered personal vehicles, filling up (illegally) on the farm from their big tank. > > I buy five gallons of gas every few weeks for lawn mowers, weed wackers, snowblower, leaf blower, chainsaws, lawn tractors, etc. No odometers on any of those gas burners. What would stop me from pouring that gasoline into my car once I get the gas can home? Farm fuels have a dye added, which can be tested by law enforcement when they pull you over. Around here if you get caught driving too far from the farm while burning farm fuel in your road vehicle, in addition to a fine you can lose your registration number used to buy the farm fuel (IOW you won’t be allowed to get the subsidy anymore). Of course, I’ve seen authorities actually checking for fuel dye exactly 1 time in forty years… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/73 "2017-03-24T16:21:56Z")
The ‘tongue-in-cheek’ smiley was because I was using _reductio ad absurdum_, suggesting that we just turn our roads over to private enterprise. That some people seem to think that’s OK is… disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/74 "2017-03-24T17:54:29Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > The ‘tongue-in-cheek’ smiley was because I was using _reductio ad absurdum_, suggesting that we just turn our roads over to private enterprise. That some people seem to think that’s OK is… disturbing. Part of the issue may be that the smiley is a “tongue sticking out” smiley, not a “tongue in cheek” smiley. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/75 "2017-03-24T18:13:27Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > Part of the issue may be that the smiley is a “tongue sticking out” smiley, not a “tongue in cheek” smiley. It’s as close as I could get. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/76 "2017-03-24T18:43:18Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > You could institute a reasonably progressive state income tax well… that’s not going to happen in WA. My guess is that this won’t go through because the conservative/rural portions of the state is against it. (The argument that I heard is that it benefits people in cities who don’t drive very far. Somehow, it was overlooked that we don’t pay as much in gas taxes either for the same reason). As gas tax is tied to upkeeping the roads, it does seem unfair that someone driving a Corolla is paying a great deal more in taxes than someone driving a Prius. They’re using more gas (and should pay for that) but they’re not using more road. On the other hand, I have definite concerns about how this would be tracked. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/77 "2017-03-24T21:52:02Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > The ‘tongue-in-cheek’ smiley was because I was using _reductio ad absurdum_, suggesting that we just turn our roads over to private enterprise. That some people seem to think that’s OK is… disturbing. Well… if we’re going to GPS track everything, then why not? I tend to love private roads in other countries; I could learn to love them here. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764/78 "2017-03-24T22:09:43Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > The ‘tongue-in-cheek’ smiley was because I was using _reductio ad absurdum_, suggesting that we just turn our roads over to private enterprise. That some people seem to think that’s OK is… disturbing. Agreed, very disturbing - the [Trump](http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/314095-trumps-infrastructure-plan-what-we-know) plan is: 1. Tax breaks for private construction 2. Private management & charge tolls to citizens or fees to government 3. Profits! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/per-mile-tax/782764.md?page=3)