Mileage Tax in Infrastructure Bill.

[Jon651]

For anyone who has bothered to look, the American Rescue Plan is nothing more than a trillion dollar giveaway of YOUR tax dollars, and it's already a done deal.

Guess what - EVERY dollar spent by the government is a giveaway of your tax money. It just differs by who is getting it - large mega-corps, the uber-rich, foreign spending, etc. This time they are just kicking back some to the average taxpayer, but in essence it's all the same.

 

[BC38]

How will they tax all the boats and lawn equipment and snowmobiles and ATVs etc using gas?

Those don't operate (legally) on the roads that the gas taxes are *supposed* to be dedicated to maintaining and paying for.
So the gas for them shouldn't be taxed. In fact, legally, you can buy and use off road gas in all of those - if you can find someplace that sells it.

 

[BC38]

I've never needed the government to tell me when my car needed new brakes, new tires or new bulbs. Good reason not to live in Virginia.

Me neither, but when I look at some of the rolling junk piles I see on the roads, it is pretty obvious that some of these idiots do.
We used to have the same annual safety inspection system in Missouri when I was a kid. Not a big deal if you keep your vehicle in safe driving condition, but it did keep some fools from operating deathtraps on the public roads.

 

[BC38]

If the gasoline tax is replaced by a mileage tax, how will the rich people with yachts and private planes pay their "fair share"?

The fuel for those uses is already exempt from road taxes.
But again, yachts and private planes don't use the roads, and gas taxes are supposed to be for building and maintaining roads. Not as some kind of punishment for being successful.
But if using taxation to punish the rich is your goal, a simple sales tax on off-road fuels would do it in this case.

 

[BC38]

Guess what - EVERY dollar spent by the government is a giveaway of your tax money. It just differs by who is getting it - large mega-corps, the uber-rich, foreign spending, etc. This time they are just kicking back some to the average taxpayer, but in essence it's all the same.

The operative word here is SOME - but not a lot.
Last I read only around 10% of this boondoggle bill is earmarked for actual infrastructure like roads, bridges, ferries, power grid, etc.
The other 90% is pork for politician's pet projects.

 

[glenwolde]

It's just a fact that revenue from gasoline taxes is falling. It's not just COVID, it started before all that. People are driving less and cars are getting better mileage. The younger urban crowd is all Ubering/Lyfting around when they aren't riding public transit.

Falling tax revenues means they are going to have to make it up somehow. The infrastructure bill as far as I've read just has a provision for a pilot program and a feasibility study on the mileage taxation. But it's probably coming.

Something like 18 states charge extra registration fees ($50-$200) on electric vehicles to try and compensate for the lack of fuel tax revenue from those vehicles. You can bet more will jump on that bandwagon.

The internal combustion engine's days are numbered. Every major oil company is cutting back on their exploration budgets. Electric cars are coming. You can cling to your gas burner but once the volume of gas usage drops you'll have a problem. Imagine half of the gas stations close and it goes to $20 a gallon. You'll buy an electric car.

But you can bet they won't get the timing right on the conversion. They have to build out the charging/generating network while cutting back on fossil fuel distribution. I'm betting they'll be too slow on the former and too fast on the latter. Mostly because it's two different groups doing it with zero coordination.

If you're a two car family it's going to be a good idea to have one of each in a few years.

 

[MTC(SS)Ret]

Just raise the federal gas tax a few cents per gallon. The more you drive the more gas you have to buy, so you pay more taxes to help fix the infrastructure. The government doesn't have to spend billions of dollars trying to track how many miles each vehicle is driven every year. In 2020 about 170 billion gallons of on road gasoline and diesel were used. Raising the gas tax 5 cents per gallon would generate an additional 8.5 billion dollars for road repairs. If a person drives 15,000 miles a year at 20 miles per gallon, they would pay an additional $37.50 a year for gas, about 75 cents per fill-up. They probably toss that much change in the center console every time they go thru the fast food drive-thru.

 

[UncleEd]

In this thread, I see a lot of "they"
doing bad things which posters
don't like.

"They" must be very smart or at least
cunning.

And apparently no one has a way or even
a clue to controlling "they."

 

[glenwolde]

Just raise the federal gas tax a few cents per gallon. The more you drive the more gas you have to buy, so you pay more taxes to help fix the infrastructure. The government doesn't have to spend billions of dollars trying to track how many miles each vehicle is driven every year. In 2020 about 170 billion gallons of on road gasoline and diesel were used. Raising the gas tax 5 cents per gallon would generate an additional 8.5 billion dollars for road repairs. If a person drives 15,000 miles a year at 20 miles per gallon, they would pay an additional $37.50 a year for gas, about 75 cents per fill-up. They probably toss that much change in the center console every time they go thru the fast food drive-thru.

Makes sense, but what happens is as they raise the tax consumption falls and they don't get the revenue they expect. It's much the same with any tax increase. The increase itself changes behavior. Revenue projections are never met as people find ways to reduce their use or avoid the tax through other means. It would have to be more than a few cents to make up the shortfall I think, but I'll see if I can go do the math.

Edit: Your $8.5 billion isn't much. The Federal Highway Trust fund has been running at a deficit. They spent roughly $48 billion in 2019. Looks like revenue was $39 billion. The cumulative deficit is projected to be roughly $200 billion in ten years.

The CBO's numbers come up with a 15 cent per gallon increase, indexed to inflation, to make it all work out.

That's just the Feds. Their portion of the spending is 25% of the total. The states pick up the rest. How good a shape your state is in is a whole 'nother question. That would probably add more to the increase. You know states will use the cover of a Federal Fuel Tax increase to raise their own.

This was all before COVID and the latest infrastructure bill. Not sure what those are going to do to the numbers above.

 

[jag312]

I think I will be riding my motorcycle a lot more.

 

[twodog max]

The waste of taxpayer money goes on unabated. Yes infrastructure needs attention but no new taxes. Start using the money they already steal correctly. Realistically zero chance of that ever happening. I worked for a state agency state 36 years before retiring. The ability of upper level bureaucrats to waste millions is simply mind boggling. It happens everywhere every day. Unless these people are stopped we are never getting out of this downward spiral. I have scant hope

 

[s&wchad]

A number of posts have been deleted and dings were issued.

FAR too political…

We're done.