Earlier quoted context omitted.
Offhand, the maintenance costs are something similar to a scalar that is the square of a vehicle's weight. Rather than indirectly taxing via fuel it would be more proper to do so by said maintenance scalar (weight based) and the distance driven as the inputs. Presumably paid at the time of registration renewal or at vehicle inspections. That sounds like a lot of infra change to setup, so there should be plenty of pla…
This unfortunately is flawed logic if it's intended to tax EV's as it would target semi trucks and heavy duty trucks more than EV's. https://ctr.utk.edu/electric-vehicles-damage-roads/
US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
31–40 of 103 posts
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
That Duffy sent this letter to the governors: https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/memorandum/Freedom_to_Drive_Initiat... Asking them to maximise roadway capacity (that’s to say just one more lane bro) in order to solve congestion, at the explicit request to have other modes of transport minimised. “recover roadway capacity from other purposes to support driving” because that’ll solve congestion. Deeply, deeply unserious.
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Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#33I mean we're dealing with an administration that paid off windfarms billions to NOT build but this endless war of choice is making everything in the world extra horrible and Russia just got another pass to sell more oil at top dollar to fund their own war
We also subsidize fossil fuels at around US$800 B/year direct, and much more than that indirect (wars, pollution, warming etc). A 100% fossil tax is what we need to kick that habit.
I would like to see a source for that. Usually this is from someone who thinks corporate taxes should be on gross revenue instead of profit.
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Offhand, the maintenance costs are something similar to a scalar that is the square of a vehicle's weight. Rather than indirectly taxing via fuel it would be more proper to do so by said maintenance scalar (weight based) and the distance driven as the inputs. Presumably paid at the time of registration renewal or at vehicle inspections. That sounds like a lot of infra change to setup, so there should be plenty of pla…
That shifts the costs onto shipping companies, a more concentrated and coordinated interest with better lobbyists than the general public.
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#35I'm getting really tired of every single attempt to be taxed into oblivion. Just leave me the hell alone
Please explain your ideal scenario of who pays for roads. And if your answer is "someone else" (e.g. "taxes", "government", "corporations", "billionaires"), further explain why "someone else" can't use the same argument to make you pay.
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#36Zeroing out the gas tax aside, the EV tax makes _some_ sense. Gas taxes provide the revenue that help pay for road maintenance and the rest of the infrastructure that cars use. Gas taxes made sense -- the more you drive, the more you chip in to keep the road system going. That infrastructure still needs to exist, and will still cost money to maintain -- but if fewer people are buying gas, then the funds will dry up,…
Are EVs that widespread in the US already that you're at the stage where you need to move from incentivising EV purchases to normalising their taxation?
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#37Gas tax is politically toxic. But maybe an excise tax on oil profits? (If you could come up with a Constitutional way to tax only energy exports, that would be better still.)
The electorate is not so stupid that "it turns out people really don't want what I'm peddling so I'm just gonna reframe it and those idiots will be none the wiser" is likely to work. Nevermind the fact that by moving it from gas to oil companies you're also then taxing "energy" more generally and it's gonna show up across the entire economy.
Tougher to notice. And you can pitch it as a windfall tax.
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Offhand, the maintenance costs are something similar to a scalar that is the square of a vehicle's weight. Rather than indirectly taxing via fuel it would be more proper to do so by said maintenance scalar (weight based) and the distance driven as the inputs. Presumably paid at the time of registration renewal or at vehicle inspections. That sounds like a lot of infra change to setup, so there should be plenty of pla…
This unfortunately is flawed logic if it's intended to tax EV's as it would target semi trucks and heavy duty trucks more than EV's. https://ctr.utk.edu/electric-vehicles-damage-roads/
The current model is roughly that all of society shoulders the cost roughly equally per person, regardless of how much they use that road or how much they drive in general. But clearly, some people derive more benefit from the road than others. The guy who doesn't drive derives 0 units of benefit. The gal who drives on it once a year derives 1 unit of benefit. The daily commuter gets 100 units of benefit. For the trucker moving $10M of goods a year on that road, their company gets 3000 units of benefit. So in a sense, the people who drive less are subsidizing the people who drive more - kind of like going to a fixed-price buffet dinner (people who eat more are subsidized by people who eat less).
Targeting more of the cost burden on heavy goods vehicles isn't an issue in my opinion. The thing is, that highway costs $1M no matter what. The only thing we can decide as a society is how to split that cost among the people. In the current way, I think the truck is underpriced and is doing more than its fair share of damage. If we change the prices so that car drivers pay less (not zero) and the truck driver pays more, that's okay. The truck's costs get passed onto consumer, such that people who buy more goods pay more road tax - exactly as intended.
Taking a step back, I think a lot of (not all) problems in society are a result of mispricing - often for political, special-interest, and/or "feel-good" reasons. When people pay less than the true cost, they over-consume. When people pay more than the true cost, they under-consume.
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#39I want to set aside the author's disdain and polemics for a second: - The federal gas tax is low and unchanged. States have their own gas taxes in addition that do go up and have done so a lot in the last several decades. - The current compromise is to collect it once at a federal level and split the proceeds with the states. This has problems, but it's better than having every state track individual mileage on publi…
“Has problems” is an interesting way to gloss over we’ve got an administration that has openly declared war on any state he didn’t win and will no doubt withhold funds from the states he doesn't like, the same ones that will be providing the vast majority of the revenue in question.
I literally cannot think of a worse way to enforce this than letting the federal government collect the tax and then distribute it to the states as they see fit.
Re: US bill proposes new national EV tax, while some push to slash gas tax to zero
#40(wonder where the bill really originates from?)