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Roads attract no property taxes. To those who believe that they should, how would you determine the tax rate for I-10 in Culbertson County, TX?  The highway occupies scrub land that had no value prior to the coming of the highway and, as a matter of fact, has little if any value today. Very few people using the highway stop in Culbertson County. There is nothing to stop for. The argument that roadways should pay property taxes is an unsupportable stretch. No politician in his or her right mind is going to propose taxing highways, which would be akin to the tax collector collecting taxes from himself.   Al Perlman may have been correct for his time. But conditions have changed dramatically since he was in charge of the New York Central. The key questions should address today's dynamics.  At one time the railroads paid exorbitant property taxes because they were viewed as cash cows. That has changed. So the question is how much do they pay in property taxes today.  Not what they paid 50 or 60 years ago.  As noted, the real question regarding tax liabilities, although none of this discussion has anything to do with intercity passenger rail, since the railroads are prohibited from passing any tax burdens through to Amtrak, is whether the net tax bill for the railroad rights-of-way is greater than, less than, or equal to the net tax bill for the trucking companies' proportional use of public rights-of-way.   I have figured out what the truckers probably paid in 2011 for federal and state fuel taxes. Getting the sales taxes, excise taxes, and license taxes would be a daunting challenge. So far I have not been able to get a good handle on what the railroads paid in property taxes for their rights-of-way. But I am working on it for grins.
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