Milage based taxing of Automobles and Milaged Based Auto Insurance

[Anonymous]

Read in USA Today(Beamed to my front door "via sattilite') that Callifornia and some other places are considering taxing cars based on the odomiter readings and how many miles they drive. This would be good for transit because the less miles you drive the less tax you would pay. This would replace the gas tax as a more accurate inidcater of user fees.What does the forum think?

[Anonymous]

Who is going to read your odometer? How about all those vehicles from other states passing thru? Must we stiop at the border for a odometer check? Taxing fuel is the best way to determine use. A heavy truck burns more fuel than an empty one. A Honda uses less fuel than an Escalade. Those Sacramento liberals must be smoking bad weed.

[Junctionfan]

That's just dumb and a waste of time. Who is going to be honest and who is going to enforce any honesty? Nice try politicians; you'll have to politically get points elsewhere.

[Overmod]

Enforceability is the key.

Alarmingly enough, modern technology gives an easy answer to 'half' the problem. Most recent vehicles have electronic odometers, and it's relatively easy to map the output from the odometer module to a wireless-enabled chip (or physical connection 'port') to allow easy reading. All that's then required is a typically-draconian set of California laws regarding odometer-system tampering (really, nothing more than a strict and thoroughgoing enforcement and judicial interpretation of existing laws).

Of course, you can expect a fairly sophisticated response from the 'hacker' community, both in spoofing the wireless diagnostics and in allowing 'switched connection' of the odometer drive. In early-'90s GMC Suburbans, for example, the odometer drive for the main and trip odometers is taken off the same motor, which is supplied by a small ribbon cable in the gauge cluster -- a simple thing to pin and unpin, once you have the cluster's back side accessible. Wouldn't be a problem to wire in a few switches, or a gang switch, for these leads to allow the odometer to be turned on and off at will; I doubt there will be any major systematic 'tech inspection' of clusters, wiring, etc., but with Californians you can be almost certain that the fines, when caught, would be in the thousands of dollars, and/or involve vehicle forfeiture, etc.

A somewhat more 'sensible' version of this proposed use-fee approach involves the number of miles run IN CRITICAL AREAS, or AT CRITICAL TIMES, or in ways that 'waste' fuel. There's already a precedent in the way that 'oxygenated' gasoline is mandated for air quality. A relatively "simple" way to implement this is to require something like a RFID "toll tag" (or special permit) in order to drive in some areas ... enforcement of this crap would not be particularly difficult for CHP, I suspect, and a fun source of beaucoodles of additional revenue ... with automated billing based on checkpoints and times/speeds passed.

One suspects that heavy-vehicle log procedures could easily be amended to reflect routing and times, and many trucks are already fitted with wireless 'pass' systems for weight and lading. I have always thought that periodic billing is more sensible than making vehicles stop at toll or inspection stations.

How you deal with the obvious issues -- leaving the RFID in the vehicle being serviced while you drive a loaner, leaving the tag in 'your other pair of pants', poor reception, malicious or erroneous billing, etc. -- will for the moment be left as exercises for the poor readers.

The point about fuel taxation being 'the best way to determine use' operationally is, I think, quite right. You may be sure that when a fuel tax was originally introduced, other alternatives -- such as mileage -- were considered. If I recall correctly, in Britain many years ago you were required to maintain a mileage log on diesel vehicles, which matched your odometer, and then pay tax based on this information. It's generally easier to 'get the money first' -- particularly by incorporating the amount directly into the 'price' the consumer sees. Note that it becomes technically possible to increase the amount of tax that would be charged at facilities in certain regions -- say, parts of the LA Basin -- and therefore achieve some targeted action both in consumption and in selective pro rata allocation of revenue to such regions. However, I can already hear the squeals and predict the arguments of the lobbyists and lawyers for business owners just 'inside' the perimeter of the selected areas...

[Anonymous]

Actually its an interesting concept. For mileage, here in NC we have an annual inspection where your mileage is recorded and using the OBD2 connections it is sent to Raleigh- that could be expanded into a taxing system (not that I want it, but its not that unfeasible) . Several of you are correct in asking how do you deal with out of state travel- I dont know- but what computers will allow in the future is almost scary.
A problem with a fuel based system is that while a Hummer and a Honda use different amonts of fuel, generating different tax revenues, they each occupy the same lane space and generate the same road needs.

[Overmod]

Where's the discussion of insurance mentioned in the initial title of this thread?

One of the political points of a fuel-based system is to provide either incentives for fuel-saving vehicles (normally smaller, less well performing, and/or more expensive than the market would otherwise favor) or 'negative incentives' for equipment that burns more. Note that truckers and other commercial users have tax deductions and customer pass-throughs to recoup additional fuel cost, but folks driving what used to be called 'guzzlers' will be paying proportionally more on the flexible part of their operating cost... which is, I think, an acceptable use of public policy for a common 'welfare-economic' end.

One point about the current version of a fuel-based system is that it is legally 'fair' -- everybody pays the same effective rate per gallon, so there's no discrimination between groups or classes of users. This also greatly simplifies enforcement, administration, etc. costs. You can imagine the fun if there were scales or load cells at every gas pump, and the effective price changed depending on the weight, number of axles, etc.

One aspect of the overall 'revenue' level setting (addressing the Hummer/Honda point) is that the minimum revenue from overall receipts is intended to cover 'baseline' traffic requirements... the amount of lane-space, the amount of road maintenance, etc. that all the vehicles together cause. A perfectly 'feasible' alternative would be to apportion the cost on a pro-rata basis, bundling it into, say, the registration cost of vehicles as a line-item or 'wheel tax'. This has two big problems, of course:

1) How do you get out-of-state governments to fork over their 'fair share' of your roads' use by vehicles registered in their jurisdiction?

2) Voters HATE wheel taxes -- they see it all in one lump, as a government cost, rather than in little increments, hidden inside the pump price they 'have' to pay anyway to get fueled up. I cannot think of anything that replaces fuel as a convenient way to microbill and demand-meter road-related expenses. Tolls are an alternative, but people don't like them, even if they were microbilled via RFID and put on, say, your utility or telephone bill.

I leave open, as I said, the idea of using variable tax structure on fuel to do some demand regulation -- for example, by charging less money for gas at certain hours, or putting higher regional taxes on some fuel sales. Some interesting things can be done here without incurring a major 'bootlegging' response (along the general lines of offroad/agricultural fuel or home heating oil in your diesel vehicle!) but, again, the cost of setup, enforcement, and inevitable litigation needs to be considered against the revenue stream and political fallout...

[Junctionfan]

The only way the government is going to do it is transponders and tolls.

[TH&B]

Looking at all the different creative examples and ideas here, now I gotta say that the gas tax where everyone pays the same per gallon probably does work best. My car is not the easiest on gas but I can easily regulate how much I will use my car or even get another car that runs on less gas if I choose. I sure don't want anyone reading my odometer wich isn't acurate anyways or poking at my car in any other way. The more complicated the tax collection is, the more costly collecting the tax becomes.

Toll routes for interstates and freeways are in order only if it helps reduce income tax or improves driving conditions. I do hope we are only talking alternative ways to tax, not additional ways to tax, wich is what I'm affraid of.

[Junctionfan]

The Ontario government and the Canadian government is suppose to give municipalities a percentage of the gas tax to improve transit infrustructure and VIA Rail.

[Anonymous]

Id say no way in HELL!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by 440cuin

Looking at all the different creative examples and ideas here, now I gotta say that the gas tax where everyone pays the same per gallon probably does work best. My car is not the easiest on gas but I can easily regulate how much I will use my car or even get another car that runs on less gas if I choose. I sure don't want anyone reading my odometer wich isn't acurate anyways or poking at my car in any other way. The more complicated the tax collection is, the more costly collecting the tax becomes.

Toll routes for interstates and freeways are in order only if it helps reduce income tax or improves driving conditions. I do hope we are only talking alternative ways to tax, not additional ways to tax, wich is what I'm affraid of.

California Gov. Schwarzenegger recently appointed a new head of the DMV who has in the past advocated taxing automobiles on a mileage basis but I haven't seen anything to indicate that that's going to be the governor's policy.

[Anonymous]

Toyota showed a concept car where you had to insert your drivers license and it would reduce horsepower and top speed if you had too many tickets. Insurance companies would love to tap into your cars computer and change your rates accordingly. You own your car but apparently not the information in its computer. And then there's onboard GPS. And then there's rfid's embedded in your tires. Without a right to privacy there's no technical reason that in the near future I couldn't be taxed for shifting gears and changing lanes.

[Anonymous]

HAH.

One of my cars have a odometer that is beyond it's mechanical limits and thus EXEMPT on my registration.

They would LOSE money on me. I drive about 20-30 miles a week per car.