News: Washington state may introduce annual MPG-based car taxes
 

Via ABG: Washington state may introduce MPG-based car taxes

Is it really true that this tax will hurt lower income people more, as some argue, because they can't afford to buy newer cars that get better mileage? Seems to me there are more older cars that get better mileage than the latest crop of cars.

More: Seattle Post Intelligencer

"The tax would replace slumping revenue collected through the state's gas tax. Rising fuel costs have lured drivers from their cars while the increased popularity of gas-efficient vehicles has cut back on the number of trips drivers make to the pumps."

Slumping revenue... can that be true? More miles driven, more drivers, more SUVs, more vehicles, and because a couple of them are hybrids they say the revenue is slumping?!?

Yea I agree demand is higher than ever. Here's a look.

I've not found more current data yet, but MN used 400,000,000 more gallons of gas in '97 than '87 (from 1,900,000,000 gallons to 2,300,000,000 gallons :eek: )! P.S. 2,700,000,000 gallons in '04. Still looking.

"The gas guzzling reflects the fact that more people are driving, that nearly everyone is driving more miles and that motorists are buying bigger cars with lower gas mileage." http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-62578944.html

And MN was 18th in the U.S. in gas consumption. I have no reason to believe there's been a reversal in that trend, much less a slowdown.

Find some numbers for 2007 and we'll see, :)

Besides, it may be dropping per capita. It's especially an issue when building roads if people are driving more and paying less taxes to do it, *shrug*

Still looking...

MN performs poorly in the "per capita" rankings as well...

If they are basing this new tax off of how far you drive and your EPA rating, then why not just raise gas taxes more? Requires less overhead in checking people's odometers and taxes the people actually wasting the most fuel the most.

Just playing devil's advocate.... Tourism?

GenKreton -

Hrmmmmm. Don't know. If the gas in one state is demonstrably more than another state, maybe people would stock up on gas from neighboring states? Like crossing the border for booze.

CarloSW2

border crossing
 

They cross for cigarettes, booze,why not for gas? Then the lower tax state will raise its taxes,(not as much) to gain higher revenue. It would trickle over till one state got greedy then maybe all would go up evenly.
Just a thought.
S.