Oregon governor looking at GPS-based mileage tax to fund roads

Electric cars and other fuel-efficient vehicles certainly have plenty going for them, but all that reduction in fuel consumption also has the side effect of reducing the money earned from gas taxes, which has prompted folks like Oregon governor Ted Kulongoski to turn to some alternative solutions to keep those funds rolling in. In the case of Oregon, Governor Kulongoski is proposing a mileage tax that would eventually replace the gas tax altogether, and make use of GPS units to determine just how far each person travels and bill them accordingly (Oregon is proposing a 1.2 cent per mile tax). To assuage privacy concerns, that information would apparently only be collected when the driver fuels up, and actual travel information supposedly wouldn't be tracked. Obviously, that system would only work if everyone had a GPS, so the governor is proposing an increase in the standard gas tax in the interim, with drivers already equipped with a GPS unit eligible for a refund on the taxes paid. All of this also still has to pass the Oregon legislature to become law, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time that the state broke with convention.

[Jason @ Dec 31st 2008 4:08PM]

It's a good thing that Oregon can't just have auto inspectors read the odometer.

[Rob @ Dec 31st 2008 4:11PM]

Dude, you just shut down any potential for me getting hired by these clowns. That was idea. Damn ... lol ...

[Freakin Ijit @ Dec 31st 2008 4:25PM]

Not high-tech enuf.

[Boarderwoot @ Dec 31st 2008 4:32PM]

Right, that makes sense because noone ever accumulates miles on their car outside of their own state.

[Cris T @ Dec 31st 2008 4:37PM]

Then there would be a better reason t get your clock turned back.

[Jason @ Dec 31st 2008 4:37PM]

C'mon Boarderwoot, it's the matching "PRINCIPLE" of taxation, not the matching stalk-your-ass-so-it-can-be-a-hard-and-fast-rule of taxation. No, no.

[inteller @ Dec 31st 2008 4:38PM]

yes, but then people would get taxed for miles they might have driven out of state, not on oregon roads.

The real problem with this is you are execting all Oregon citizens not only to own a GPS, but actually know how to operate it to track mileage. good luck with that.

[thatrotierkid @ Dec 31st 2008 4:38PM]

gas tax does the same thing. when i go to MA, they dont check my odometer at the border to see how many miles i drove in their state and then charge me a tax. i pay the tax through gas, which ends up going usually to my state, NH. but for ever person like me who drives in MA w/o paying tax, theres someone who drives in NH w/o them paying tax to my state. besides, lets be realistic, hardly any of the gas tax goes towards paying for road repairs. for most states, infrastructure is the first place they pull money from, especially in the northeast. come up some time, we have terrible roads.

[Freakin Ijit @ Dec 31st 2008 4:39PM]

If a car is registered in Oregon it pays Oregon mileage tax. Makes sense to use the odometer to me. In some states you pay a "property tax" on any vehicle that resides in that state no matter where you drive it mostly. Same thing, pretty much.

[and if one used a GPS I can see a GREAT market for Foil Beenies:

[getnate @ Dec 31st 2008 4:48PM]

The point is not tracking mileage, the point is to track you. Imagine the endless possibilities of the government knowing everywhere you've been, when you were there and how fast you were driving? Don't think for a moment this is private data, all it takes is a court order from a judge to get your info.

Infact, every year when they review the data they could just mail you tickets by cross referencing your speed with where you were to the speed limit on that road, sweet!

[Boarderwoot @ Dec 31st 2008 5:01PM]

@jason,

Principle or not, if I live on the border of my state and do all my driving in the state next door why should i pay tax to my home state where i hardly use the roads especially if the neighboring state has lower taxes? In oregan the tax currently is $0.25/gallon with a 30mpg car thats .83 cents per mile in which case they'd be getting taxed more with this new system. In Illinois with the second highest gas tax at almost 40 cents a gallon its about 1.3 cents a mile. So infact, he's suggesting to tax you one of the highest in the country orver what they currently pay. If I want a product (which you can relate to a product as "miles driven") in another state and the tax is cheeper, why not go to the other state if it's within reason? Does it make sense for me to get penalized for making a more economic decision? Why do you think people buy all their shit online? (and yes I realize that when you buy a car you pay tax in the county that you live in regaurdless of where you buy your car but that's pretty much the only istance.)

[Jason @ Dec 31st 2008 5:16PM]

No Boarderwoot, it makes no more sense than the alternative where out of state truck drivers will pay nothing while you pay increasingly more to cover the damage they do.

[Jason @ Dec 31st 2008 5:17PM]

Except that sheer simplicity makes it WAY more economical to implement.

[Chris McDowell @ Jan 1st 2009 12:22AM]

I think most truckers drive through a state on the highway which most use federal money to pay for.

[mabhatter @ Dec 31st 2008 10:41PM]

I like the breakdown per gallon/mile somebody posted. What's the cost of implementing GPS, and the tech to read all those? That's the real question. I think the plan is somebody's wet dream to get tracking in every car.... then law enforcement, etc will justify the other things.. speeding tickets and police tracking..

Why not do what most states do, raise the tax, then rebate high volume users like truckers part of the money so they don't go under. Frankly, after Gas went to $3.50+ another $0.25 cents tax wouldn't even be noticed but would go a long way to balancing budgets. He is right though that the states have to get money not based on gasoline. It would make transition to electric and ethonol easier because energy providers wouldn't have to pay the tax up front... the main thing the bio-diesel crowd gets in trouble for. No matter what you drove, you'd all pay the same tax per mile.. does seem fair. Also the $3 gas really did curb consumer driving to the tune of 20%. As the state rebates truck drivers part of their gas tax, that means a larger chunk comes from consumers which means more than 20% of this years gas tax money went way and isn't there to pay for roads right now.

[Jason @ Jan 1st 2009 12:16AM]

Chris, even for interstates, the federal funds are assistive, nowhere exhaustive.

[Chuckles McGee @ Jan 1st 2009 3:19PM]

So under the proposed plan, if you have a car that gets excellent mileage, you shouldn't use the GPS plan and should instead pay the flat gas tax, since you'll be getting more miles per gallon. If you have a poor mileage car, you should use the GPS plan to avoid being over taxed by the flat rate plan. This assumes you already have a GPS or would buy one regardless of savings from the tax, as the $100 cost of the GPS would almost inevitably be greater than the difference between the two plans.

[Chris Taylor @ Jan 1st 2009 5:47PM]

Except ONE of the reasons to go electric (minor yet but not irrelevant) is I DO NOT WANT TO PAY THEM the tax.

Over my dead body will I put a GPS tracker in my car. Take the "tax" revenue lost out of the money you save in the GREEN programs since I am now creating LESS pollution.

1.2 cents a fraking mile !!! I drive 40+ thousand miles a year !! thats over $400 a freaking year. SCREW THAT.

THEY DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO TAXES WHEN ARE PEOPLE GOING TO REALIZE THIS AND PUT A STOP TO THIS KIND OF NONSENSE !!!!!

[Imperor @ Jan 1st 2009 7:28PM]

@Chris
No right to tax? At all? I think you've misunderstood something! With NO taxes, who's gonna pay for the roads you drive on??? And everything else? Taxes do A LOT of good. Income tax to pay the Federal Reserve on the other hand is something completely different.

However I do agree that this is completely idiotic and probably somthing dreamt up by Gas-companies to negate any possible savings on alternative fuels. That everyone could be constantly tracked even without RFIDs is just an extra incentive for the Government... Very true though!

[asha @ Jan 2nd 2009 12:51PM]

which would be about a billion times more practical than making everyone get a GPS unit installed in their car.

I think the problem with your idea is that it actually makes sense. It depends upon actual logic instead of high technology to solve the problem.

[Rob @ Dec 31st 2008 4:10PM]

This asswipes politicians are always thinking of ways on how to take more and more out of our miserable salaries, while giving themselves unchallenged raises all the time with full medical coverage "fo' life."

Anyway, if they really want to go with this, the best, and cheapest way to do it is ... wait I need a job. If they want to find out, they should offer me a 6 figures salary first.

[Fatima @ Dec 31st 2008 4:30PM]

Perhaps you should have worked harder during school? A gas tax/road tax w/e you call it is a great idea. It will help fund Mass Transit and push hydrogen technology development. Hybrids and Electrics are just stop gaps, we need hydrogen! Also the money can be used to fund Mag-Lev trains and bullet trains which the rest of the world has! And america was supposed to be no. 1 right?

[Rob @ Dec 31st 2008 4:38PM]

Fatima, although in theory everything looks good. But, we all know that government is great at coming up with ways to pull more and more money out of pockets via taxation. But, they never do anything of what they promised in order to get such measured passed. The reason we have problems is because govt's do nothing but tax us more, while giving us less back for our money. No thank you.

They need to find ways to do more with what they're already extorting from us. We're not Europe. If they like being taxed through their noses, that's their problem.

[subgenius @ Dec 31st 2008 5:04PM]

Mass transit has enough problems in Oregon already. The problem is finding the space to actually have a train. Currently the MAX is limited to 1 car because it takes such hard turns it can't have more then one car. Also there have been HUGE safety problems with the MAX and it has been left up to concerned citizens to ride the train at night to help people feel comfortable. Course these problems require thought and the decisions are difficult. It is far easier to come up with an annoying tax system related to driving, ask former Gov. Gray Davis how that worked out for him.

[Fatima @ Dec 31st 2008 5:09PM]

The key factor for a gas tax should be to reduce congestion and convince people to take mass transit. So with the money from gas tax u can build up the mass transit so people can actually use it. Off course you can't tax the people who are in rural areas and the poor so the tax structure would have to be carefully implemented

[SK @ Dec 31st 2008 5:22PM]

What a great idea, imagine this conversation:

Taxpayer: "I got mailed a fine, because my state provided GPS wasn't working"

Bureaucrat: "You'll have to pay the fine, and recurring fines, until you get the unit fixed"

Taxpayer: "But how I am supposed to know the GPS isn't working?"

Bureaucrat:"You'll have to pay the fine, and recurring fines, until you get the unit fixed"

So idiotic an idea, they don't even do it in Massachusetts! Good job Gov!

[Dean @ Dec 31st 2008 5:28PM]

@subgenius: I'm not sure what you are talking about, Max trains are at least 2 (big) cars long. They are rarely ever full, so adding more cars isn't something they would want to do if they could.

@Rob: How exactly do you propose to pay for the road systems if not through taxes on people that drive on the roads? Bridge repairs? Road expansions? Onramps and offramps? All of those million dollar road projects that go towards our simply amazingly effective road system were designed by the "asswipe politicians" who like to do nothing more than take your paycheck or whatever it is you were going on about.

[Rob @ Dec 31st 2008 5:38PM]

Dean, I understand that roads repair and construction is financed, at least is the claim, from gas tax. My problem is that more often than not, politicians are always looking for more "creative" ways to tax us. Seldom are they ever looking for ways to do more with what we're already giving them. Just do your math and you'd realized that we're taxed on every single thing in our lives. There's a tax for everything. And, to add insult to injury, they're always coming up with more ways to tax us even more while giving themselves raises that never go through public approval. That's my problem.

[Connor @ Jan 1st 2009 12:17PM]

@Fatima -
Maybe YOU should have worked harder in school - hydrogen is so light, it floats away into space after hanging around in the atmosphere. Using hydrogen as our primary energy source could feasibly exhaust not only our supply of hydrogen, but water too. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it's just not the end all be all of solutions (it seems to me)

[i-i @ Jan 1st 2009 1:16PM]

FATIMA that is Terrorist talk, don't ever question USA and Apple!

[Spencer @ Dec 31st 2008 4:10PM]

This is a great step in the right direction. It will require legislation like this to transition the US to electric vehicles.

[gas @ Dec 31st 2008 4:14PM]

Please enlighten us on how exactly this will speed the transition to electric vehicles? Lets say on Jan 1, this tax goes into affect. On Jan 2 magically all cars in oregon morph into electrics. Do you honestly believe on Jan 3 the tax would be revoked? Are you really that naive? This is only great if you are down with orwellian government.

[coffee @ Dec 31st 2008 4:18PM]

What a wonderful step in the right direction.

Instead of signing a piece of paper tomorrow that says "raise the gas tax 2 cents", Oregon can make everyone install GPS systems (over the next few years) in every single car that is registered there, at a cost of hundreds of dollars.

Then Oregon can train the Inspection Guys to read those GPS systems and note the mileage, then you can pay your gas tax all at once, instead of over time, which people might be able to afford. Oh, don't forget to pay your licensing and registration fees at the same time, too.

Then when those GPS systems fail, you can take it to a state-run facility to get it fixed or get a new one, even though your car is just fine, you can take a day off work, wait in line at what is likely to be some branch of the DMV, etc....

But yeah, it's a great first step.

How about, make an electric vehicle that costs the same as a gas-powered one, has decent range, and doesn't look like a Prius?

[kjb434 @ Dec 31st 2008 4:22PM]

How? It will actually benefit people who use more gas and penalize people who don't use gas.

Also, you could just register your car in a different state.

[Spencer @ Dec 31st 2008 4:26PM]

Let's put this in simple terms...

Gas vehicles use gas. The goverment taxes gas. The government likes vehicles that use gas because they get money from them. The government likes auto companies to make gas cars so they can get more money.

This new tax is a way for the government to fairly tax electric cars. They will now get money from electric cars, just like they get money from gas cars now. The goverment likes to get money, so they will like auto companies making electric cars. Thus, we will eventually drive electric cars.

It is definitely not a quick fix. Good things take time.

[shostakov @ Dec 31st 2008 4:36PM]

Well, the thing is--electric cars are more expensive to buy. So if you're going to get taxed for driving an electric car just as you are for driving a gas car, that's one less incentive to make the switch. If the government is serious about wanting to protect the environment, this is not a step in the right direction. Why should people who drive more be taxed more? If they're driving gas vehicles, it makes sense--it discourages them from polluting. But if they're driving electric cars? It just seems like you're trying to apply an old taxation where it no longer makes sense.

[thatrotierkid @ Dec 31st 2008 4:48PM]

@spencer

yes but the government already taxes electricity and will tax any other viable fuel source that comes along. they dont need such a complex system as expensive gpses to do it.

[Joe Anstine @ Dec 31st 2008 5:01PM]

this is a TERRIBLE potential piece of legislation. the whole idea is invasive and will only serve to fill the pockets of government officials in general. There are other answers to this transition problem and the answer is not to tax the consumer more. That is absurd.

[Spencer @ Dec 31st 2008 5:03PM]

I agree with the statement about the gps use. That does seem a little to extravagant. There may be a better way. I am just happy to see the government take one more step to adopting vehicles powered by something other that gasoline.

[BlurMagic @ Dec 31st 2008 4:11PM]

I know a guy who had a Kulongoskipi once... They went in and cleaned out his kulon.

Personally I think this is a rather expensive task... And all you would have to do to avoid the tax is disable the GPS.

[Jason @ Dec 31st 2008 4:15PM]

Nah, since it would be hidden and embedded, it's probably just easier to jam the GPS signal.

[Wiigee @ Dec 31st 2008 4:12PM]

just a bit Orwellian....

[Tayklor @ Dec 31st 2008 11:01PM]

Agreed.

[Michael Moody @ Dec 31st 2008 4:13PM]

Sounds just like this:

http://www.roaduserstudy.org/faq.aspx

[Wiigee @ Dec 31st 2008 4:13PM]

what would his sexuality have to do with this? or are you just being a homophobe?

[Mark Gigante @ Dec 31st 2008 4:13PM]

Can't you just us your odometer instead of GPS to track miles?

[chefgon_ign @ Dec 31st 2008 4:13PM]

So what they're doing is punishing drivers of economical cars and rewarding drivers of gas guzzling SUVs? What a crock.

By taking the number of gallons purchased out of the equation, they're creating a system where everybody pays the same amount per mile regardless of gas usage. If their goal is to replace the old gas tax with an equal amount of income from the mileage tax, that means gas guzzlers are going to be paying less than they were and hybrid drivers are going to be paying more than they were.

Thanks for nothing, Oregon.

[MiaCane @ Dec 31st 2008 4:17PM]

Ding Ding Ding Ding.....we have a winner!!!!!!

talk about short sighted legislation

[kjb434 @ Dec 31st 2008 4:20PM]

That is the point dumbass. The problem is that our road system is based on gas taxes. If the masses continually use more efficient vehicles, the government gets less and less money to maintain roads.

This tax is to eliminate that discrepancy and to allow all users to pay for how much they use the road.

The problem? Well, you can just register your car in a different state.

[Jason @ Dec 31st 2008 4:24PM]

Except, dumbass, that the lower consumption vehicles are also much lighter and cause significantly less damage to road surfaces.

Now the out of state, double-trailer truckdrivers just passing through from CA to WA all day long will be paying NOTHING for the damage they do to the roads. That's the point.