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News Wire: Illinois governor's infrastructure plan to include $2.9 billion for Metra parent

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  • Member since
    October 2014
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Posted by Gramp on Thursday, June 6, 2019 9:50 PM

CMStPnP

Fixing the gas tax is encouraging but similar to the Federal Level they have no way to tax electric cars using the infrastructure at the same level as gas or diesel cars are taxed.   In fact they have money in the bill to subsidize directly the use of electric cars by providing money for charging stations.......which will canibalize train ridership to an extent since an electric car driver is not really paying the true cost of the infrastructure it uses.    So as the use of electric cars increases, gas tax revenue will decrease.

 

They're never at a loss of finding a way to tax.  Vehicle title and registration fees are prime candidates.  That's what's in the Wisconsin legislature's plan.  We can start being like cities in China where the license plate costs more than the car.

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Posted by CMStPnP on Friday, June 7, 2019 12:08 PM

Gramp
They're never at a loss of finding a way to tax.  Vehicle title and registration fees are prime candidates.  That's what's in the Wisconsin legislature's plan.  We can start being like cities in China where the license plate costs more than the car.

Kind of strange.   Since most car dealers and oil change places already do the emissions test or "safety test" in other locations.   They should have just extended it to include an annual visit for mileage tax assessment where they review your odometer and assess you a tax on miles driven.   Why would they shift it to license plates?.........Oh well.

  • Member since
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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Friday, June 7, 2019 1:52 PM

Such a tax collection system is based on the assumption that all miles driven are within one state.  To allow for allocating the appropriate miles to any other state, you might need something like the International Fuel Tax Agreement for commercial trucks.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by MidlandMike on Friday, June 7, 2019 9:40 PM

For an electric car it would be easy enough to collect a road use tax at a comercial recharge station.  For home recharging, perhaps a smart meter could keep separate tabs on that. 

  • Member since
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  • From: Kenosha, WI
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Posted by zardoz on Friday, June 7, 2019 10:26 PM

Gramp
Vehicle title and registration fees are prime candidates.  That's what's in the Wisconsin legislature's plan.  We can start being like cities in China where the license plate costs more than the car.

IIRC, years ago Colorado's license plate cost was determined by the value of the vehicle. To me that always seemed like a fair system; a gas tax punishes the not-so-rich unfairly. If you could afford a expensive car, you could afford the tax. I do not know if that is still the policy.

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