Edit post

Edit your reply below.

Post Body
Enter your post below.
[quote user="jeaton"] [quote user="schlimm"] [quote user="Bucyrus"]What I have described as the new mileage tax system brought about by charging tolls everywhere you drive is not intended to be a tax increase.  In other words, it is not adding tolls on top of the road taxes you already pay, but rather, it is replacing road taxes with tolls that vary according to the value of the roadway driven on.  The reason this is being proposed is not to acquire more revenue.  It is being proposed as a remedy for declining fuel tax revenue that is occurring because of the trend of increasing gas mileage with cars.[/quote]  If so, why not simply raise the tax per gallon to make up for the shortfall?  Or if you don't want to add a burden on truckers, etc., then adjust rates so there is a differential between commercial vehicles and private. [/quote] It is an interesting idea and the technology is there, but at what price?  The numbers I have seen indicate that there are about 250 million registered vehicles on the road. If it only cost $100 to equip each vehicle to record the mileage, that is a total bill of $25 billion for that part alone.  In addition, I am sure that the cost of the equipment and people to set up the process and then collect and disburse the tax would add $ billions.    The goal of setting up a user fee schedule to reflect the actual cost burden of a given vehicle on the road it uses is laudable, but it is certainly going to cause some shift in the tax burden.  There will be winners and losers.  Perhaps the total amount collected will be no greater than present revenues from gas taxes, but do you really think you can convince the person who winds up paying more for the new highway tax that he has not been subject to a tax increase?     [/quote] It will cost a lot of money, but it will compensate by saving money previously spent on traffic law enforcement and traffic court.  It will also save money in replacing costly LRT and other transit systems.  The traffic management potential of this new system will make private automobiles on roadways into the new mass transit system.   In the irony of all ironies, roads and cars will become the new mass transit.  The roads and cars will remain the same, but the driving habits and road usage will change.  It will make rail and buses obsolete except for people who are unable to drive.  And for that limited purpose, rail and bus may be overkill.  Rail certainly would be overkill. Even though this is being put forth as merely a different way of collecting the tax, I would not be surprised if it does increase the tax.  The level of micro management that this new system would provide will probably lead to a whole new dimension of behavioral pricing.    It will, no doubt, indeed be used to encourage fuel conservation, leading to less driving.  Conservation pricing will make every mile you drive cost more than the previous mile.  Then it will increase the fare to cover the fixed cost of the system bureaucracy as fee collection drops from conservation.
Tags (Optional)
Tags are keywords that get attached to your post. They are used to categorize your submission and make it easier to search for. To add tags to your post type a tag into the box below and click the "Add Tag" button.
Add Tag