$1000 to register an electric vehicle ???

[Shaneajanderson]

Originally Posted by JSH

Do companies (UPS, Greyhound, OTR trucking, etc) get charged a different rate than private citizens? I'm pretty sure they do more damage.

And for JSH and elhigh.....how do you track how many miles were driven in state? Certifying an odometer doesn't account for miles driven out of state. Like my parents that go to Tuscon every year for 4 months. They drive down and back. Should they be taxed by Illinois for those miles?

Like I said in the other thread. Too many questions and no real answers. Nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction by politicians.

This is how the system works.

There are 3 private companies that collect the data (all currently do truck data analytics) All of them measure fuel consumption and miles driven based on OBDII data. They credit back the fuel tax paid at the pump and then debit per mile driven. This gets settled up every month.

Option 1: You plug a dongle into your OBDII port. It only records fuel used and miles driven. You are charged for every mile driven regardless of where

Option 2: You plug a dongle into your OBDII port. It records fuel used, miles driven, and location. You are only billed for miles driven in participation states on public roads. You are not charged for miles driven off road or in other states. The added information is also sold as an added feature as it is basically some of the same functions as On-Star and other similar services. You can see the vehicle location and put user limits for teenagers where you get reports on their driving.

Option 3: Only works on cars with Verizon's version of OnStar. Does the same thing as option 2 but without a dongle needed.


So how do they collect from out-of-state drivers?
They still pay fuel taxes at the pump. The same question case can be made for the current system. I can drive across a state today, use their roads, but never pay for them because I filled up out-of-state.

What about trucks?
Currently this system is only for private vehicles. However it would be even easier to do with trucks as all of them are required to have electronic logs books today that collect all the same information.

What about miles driven out-of-state?
If you use option 2 or 3 you are not billed for miles out of state. Right now California, Oregon, and Washington have fee-per-mile trials. Washington and Oregon are linked so when I cross state lines the rate per mile changes and the money goes the the respective state. California is not integrated yet but will be at a later date. This is a 14 state projected called RUC West.

Oregon is the farthest along.

California, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington, and Utah are doing trials

Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas are researching the idea.

I fully expect California, Oregon, and Washington to roll out an integrated system. I expect it will expand to others.

I think North Dakota's died in legislature, and since session is over now it won't be looked at again until January of 2021 at the soonest. It's not a big issue up here, somehow despite one of the harshest climates in the US, and a lot of pass-through truck traffic in ratio to local traffic that pay taxes to keep up the roads, we consistently are ranked as having some of the best roads in the union. This is largely because the taxes that are supposed to maintain our roads actually do, without getting pulled for other pet projects.

We also have some of the lowest gas tax and registration costs, and I seriously doubt anywhere else has cheaper tickets for moving violations.

[roosterk0031]

Just tax everything once, when you spend money regardless of what it's for. Electricity, gasoline, diesel, or car. All other taxes go away.

One state sales tax and one federal sales tax. Fair Tax

https://fairtax.org/about/how-fairta...SAAEgLuefD_BwE

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Shaneajanderson

Simply put: if you don't live in a secluded cabin in the woods, and grow food from your own harvest heirloom seeds, and eating squirrels: you depend on truck traffic.

Which is why funding infrastructure with the general fund is equitable; the guy living in the woods alone still gets to dodge income and sales tax if they're truly off-grid and self-sustaining.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

We subsidize gasoline / diesel at a much higher rate than we do electric cars.

That's not a true statement. The EV subsidy rate is much greater than gasoline.

Fossil fuels may receive more overall subsidy, but that's because it represents 98% of transportation energy.

As I've said, subsidy is usually the wrong way to influence a market. The proper way is to set specific measurable goals on the bad thing you're trying to limit, and then tax that thing until that goal is achieved. Everything else is corrupt politics.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by JSH

Oregon and bunch of other states are trialing a fee per mile program. You pay $0.017 per mile. I've been part of the trial for 2 years and it works well.

Especially if you're technically adept enough to disconnect whatever it is that monitors the mileage you've driven :-)

[JSH]

Originally Posted by roosterk0031

Just tax everything once, when you spend money regardless of what it's for. Electricity, gasoline, diesel, or car. All other taxes go away.

One state sales tax and one federal sales tax.

That is a recipe for a very regressive tax plan where the poor pay a much larger percentage of their income in taxes. The more money a household makes the lower the percentage of income that is spent on typical consumer goods that are subject to sales tax.

That is unless you are going to tax EVERY good and service including stocks, bonds, houses, credit default swaps, etc.

It is also a recipe for large swings in tax revenue because consumer spending drops like a rock during recessions - just when you want the government to ramp up spending.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Especially if you're technically adept enough to disconnect whatever it is that monitors the mileage you've driven :-)

Read my description of how it works. Unplugging the OBDII dongle just means you would default back to the fuel tax collected at the pump.

Of course that would also defeat the purpose of taking part in the trial. I'm actually paying tiny bit more for the two vehicles enrolled in the program. For April the mileage fee came to $1.99 more than what was collected in gasoline taxes.

[roosterk0031]

Originally Posted by JSH

That is a recipe for a very regressive tax plan where the poor pay a much larger percentage of their income in taxes. The more money a household makes the lower the percentage of income that is spent on typical consumer goods that are subject to sales tax.

That is unless you are going to tax EVERY good and service including stocks, bonds, houses, credit default swaps, etc.

It is also a recipe for large swings in tax revenue because consumer spending drops like a rock during recessions - just when you want the government to ramp up spending.

http://fairtax.org

[JSH]

Originally Posted by roosterk0031

http://fairtax.org

I'm aware of it, thought it sounded like a good idea, bought the book and then realized the math doesn't work. It is a national sales tax combined with a universal basic income.

The biggest slight of hand is saying the sales tax would be 23%. That is the tax-inclusive rate which is not how sales tax is done in the USA. We collect sales tax using tax-exclusive prices (Cost of item + X% tax) The tax-exclusive rate in the FairTax is 30%. That sounds a lot worse and kills any chance of it passing. It is purposefully misleading.

Fairtax then use a lot of suspect math to say 30% is enough to raise the same amount as all the other Federal taxes today. Other people fact checking it put the rate at up to 39% assuming no tax evasion and up to 50% with it.

It is also deeply regressive. The "prebate", which is the supporters name for a universal yearly income of $2707 per adult and $957 per child is meant to make it sound less regressive. It doesn't because that money is given to everyone regardless of income. Of course the big kicker is that the things that low income people spend most of their money on like food, healthcare, rent and transportation are all taxed while things that the wealthy spend their money on like stocks, bonds and real estate are not taxed.

Calculations vary a bit but the basic result is that under the FairTax people that make less than $25K a year come out the same, people that make $25K to $200K a year pay more in taxes, and people over $200K pay less than what they do today. Of course that is the intent of the proposal.

[redpoint5]

My solution to make the tax progressive is to not tax staple food items (prepared pizza excluded), the first $700/mo in rent/mortgage, the first $400/mo in health insurance, etc.

The wealthy would end up paying more since there would be no tax deductions.

The poor would pay nearly nothing unless they are idiots that eat at fast food, buy booze and cigarettes, or think they have a right to live in Manhattan.

EIC type distributions can still be made for certain cases; disability, etc. This is a function of local government though, not federal government. The feds responsibility is to make sure other countries aren't invading us, set certain environmental standards, and make sure there aren't any slave-owning states, and that's about it.

We've allowed the federal government way too much power and we're paying for it in lost liberty and lost money.

A federal sales tax could easily fund everything that should fall under federal responsibility. Local government is responsible for the rest, because those problems are local.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

The wealthy would end up paying more since there would be no tax deductions.....

No, they won’t. Not unless you apply a sales tax to investments. The wealthy don’t spend their whole income like lower income people. They invest much of it. They also spend a lot more of their money outside of the USA.

Last year my wife and I paid 22% in total taxes, invested 51%, and lived on 27%. We are comfortable within the top 10% of households but nowhere near the top 1%.