Durka-Durka-Muhammed-Jihad!!
I saw this yesterday, but wasn't exactly sure how to react to it:
States Mull Taxing Drivers By MileMy initial thought was Yeah, right but here in California it's a distinct possibility.Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."
Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea.
"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.
Kim and his team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.
"So, if you drive 10 miles you will pay a certain fee which will be, let's say, one tenth of what someone pays if they drive 100 miles," says Kim.
The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car's odometer to calculate how much you owe.
But it would fail.
Why? Because, like the added tax on cigarettes started several years ago, this will become a self-defeating tax. If someone makes their living off of driving more than the average driver, then they'll be taxed more and it'll eat into their income. These people will then take measures to reduce or eliminate this taxation and here's where the defeat enters.
At the initial start of this new taxing scheme, California Tax Franchise Board and the California Department of Transportation will avow that the monies procured from this will be 'used for road maintenance only'. Then somehow some of these funds will be diverted to other programs - some not necessarily for road maintenance - that should be covered by General Fund expenditures.
Eventually, some programs will have their funding provided exclusively by this new tax and as people start to find alternate legal methods of avoiding paying the tax, there will be an outcry that 'children are being hurt' by the lack of funding.
As with the 50-cent per pack of smokes California added several years ago - which now is depended upon for it's steady income to 'help children not take up smoking - the decreased income from these taxes will be viewed as budgetary crisis and new ways of deriving income through taxation will be created. This is evident by many cities in California banking on that added tax money to augment their normal budgets; there's less money coming in and their starting to hunt for additional income schemes.
I call it 'self-defeating' because those that think of these *cough* great ideas don't consider that people will find a way to avoid paying them. People have started quitting smoking cause it's just too expensive to keep doing (besides all the other health considerations) and they're not paying that tax anymore. Subsequently, drivers will find alternate methods to get their business done with out having to drive it.
Overall: B-A-D idea.
Well, it will be defeated because the legislature will split between wanting the revenue and not
Read more in New Tax? I Don't Think So Tim....
Comments on New Tax? I Don't Think So Tim....
Well, it will be defeated because the legislature will split between wanting the revenue and not wanting Big Brother.
|| Posted by caltechgirl, February 16, 2005 12:52 PM ||