Researchers from the University of Iowa Public Policy Center have developed a system for charging drivers federal taxes by the distance traveled rather than on gallons of gas purchased. The study is being conducted with 2,700 drivers from states like Maryland, Texas, Iowa and California to gauge public reactions and experiences with the system. The basis for the study is the declining tax dollars being paid for car use in the States; as fuel prices rise, cars get more efficient, and alternatives like ethanol and hybrids gain ground, our 18.4-cents-a-gallon tax on gas (which was set in 1993) remains static, thereby making it harder for The Man to get paid. Eventually, the government will have to find another way to generate tax dollars from drivers -- and researchers think this might be it. Instead of paying a constant fee on the fuel we purchase, drivers cars are equipped with a taxi-like meter, and users will be given a monthly bill for the miles that they've driven. We can only hope this is avoidable, perhaps due to the spontaneous existence of a free, plentiful, environment-friendly fuel source... or another revolution.
[Via
Autoblog]
posted September 25th 2007 1:56PM
In the UK "Norwich Union" have operated a similar system for car insurance - this is available to anyone. See http://www.norwichunion.com/pay-as-you-drive/ Costs also depend on road type/time of day etc.
Ugh. I hate it when Europeans tell us not to complain about the price of gas by telling us how high their's is.
Hello? In Europe, everything is closer together. (Sweeping generalization)
The fuel tax dollars never go where they should... look at Colorado for the last twenty years. They do 5 year budgets, and two ago they came up with a list of 230 vital projects, some were 15 plus years old then. 'T-Rex' was to be 8xx million or about a third of the 2.5 billion. It of course was in Denver. It quickly ballooned to 1.1b before it started and proceeded to eat up ALL the remaining budget. None of the other 229 projects got done except the #2 that HAD to be done or ELSE (looong story) that was raised by alternate fundings of various kinds. And before that was similar a few iterations... Colorado is proof that the pet projects (aka anything Denver wants they take)get the grease and the rest die. Glad I moved.
If you have an energy efficient vehicle, you'd use less gas per mile, you'd pay less on gas (gas tax). This will likely increase overall tax for everyone, but there would still be an incentive to get efficient cars, right?
It's a Subaru Outback!! Looks like a 96 too. Man, those cars are tough.
Would this sort of thing affect the trucking/transportation industry? I'm sure their lobbyists would have a field day with this. And to those who say "take the bus", I work nights and there isn't a bus running when I get off work. Sure, I could sit around for a few hours and then take one, but I'd rather just drive my car.
Like with many things having to do with infrastructure, the United States is waaay behind the times with this. A fully functional and much more advanced system has been working in Singapore for many years, which not only meters a car's usage of the roads, but also adjusts the cost based upon time of day.
What next pay as you use emergency services, pay as you use government services, pay as you use parks. I mean really infrastructure cost are spread across a wide range of tax payers while individual services used can be quite narrow. Case in point, search and rescue in the Nevada desert for Steve Fossett, probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of tax dollars used to find one man. AS IT SHOULD BE. As a society we SHARE the costs.
I may never use welfare but we all pay for it. I, with God's will, will never need search and rescue, Firemen or a CSI team but my taxes pay for others who do. Why should infrastructure like roads suddenly be different?
10 bucks says if they do implement this they wont repeal the fuel taxes.
Where is the science here? The headline says "Scientists test..."
These researchers are technologists and economists etc, so why the 'Scientist' moniker?
so IF they implement this how the fuck are they going to put in my 89 jeep which doesnt have an onboard computer or many electronics? hmm? cuz then it would have to be physical.. or they could just look at the miles on ur car and do it that way.. either way i doubt this is going to happen
There is more then enough money to fix the Roads and Bridges and everything else with the money you pay to register your Car/truck every year and the TAXES you pay to pump your gas that suppose to go into that stuff. Instead that money gets put into the General fund to pay for a bunch of other B.S. garbage. Do you really think doing this and getting even more money will fix the problem? Hell no, it'll just follow the rest and go to other things and the problems won't go away. Think about it. We get more and more cars on the road, that means more Cars per square inch. That's more Vehicle's getting Registered, and more TAX money from all that gas, and yet it's STILL not enough. Why not just get taxed 90% of our money, will THAT be enough? NOPE. No matter how much they want, it's not even enough. Why is that? It's lots of Government WASTE. These Stupid PORK projects. We'll get this bill out there to build this Bridge, but we have to pay for the Stadium also while we're at at.
I want to make my voice count and say that this is the stupidiest idea ever. Should increase gasoline tax so that people will drive less and be more efficient. I will vote against this if this ever show up on a ballot.
But then I notices only 100+ of us care enough to make some comment on this, while a contest thread will attract 8000+ comments...so I guess my vote probably won't do jack.
If your goal is to have people drive less, than having an implicit cost to do so will have a greater effect on demand than embedding the price into something people have to buy anyway. Personally I am more concerned with the fact that coal power plants are not charged for the externalities they create. But since you can get constant social benefit by driving a prius most people go that route instead of tackling a more far more important issue.
Highways are a public good and need to be paid for by the members of society that use them. A new alternative fuel does not alleviate the fact that our roads (current and badly needed new ones) need to be paid for. Economically it makes sense for the users to be paid based on usage (aka miles driven). Driving a Prius on a road is the equivalent to driving a honda accord in terms of cost on the road system. An owner of a prius should pay exactly the same to use the road system as others. Prius owners already benefit from lower gas costs/mile driven and will hopefully someday be further compensated (or not punished as much) by a carbon tax/credit scheme.
If you think that the gas tax would be removed once the per-mile tax is created, you're nuts. The new tax would be created, and the old one would stay right where it is. I can see an argument for moving from a gas tax to a mileage tax (the government is providing the roads, not your gas), but that wouldn't happen. We'd just get stuck with both.
To borrow from New Hampshire: "DRIVE FREE OR DIE".
Hey, they already took our rights away with the Patriot act, may as well start barcoding our arms.
Car registration fee in Hawaii is based on vehicle weight
http://www.theory-test.co.uk/