Plan to tax drivers per mile hidden in $1.2 trillion bill

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by kazenatsu, Aug 11, 2021.

  1. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

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    Mileage is the fairest.

    Actually, the fairest would be mileage with a vehicle weight multiplier.

    Someone with a Mini Cooper gets a multiplier of 0.75 while someone with a Ford Explorer gets a multiplier of 1.25. Heavier vehicles do more damage to the road surface than lighter vehicles.

    A mileage tax also equates to the "least amount of government" axiom.

    The last thing you want is more government agencies with their hands in the pie with more employers and budgets and everything else.

    There is something to be said about simplicity.
     
  2. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's true. But the "fairest" tax is not necessarily the best or most practical tax, and there are other big considerations like civil liberties concerns.

    I mean, we could always tax people to pay for sidewalks by requiring them to carry tracking devices so we can see how much they are using those sidewalks, but that would be a very excessively intrusive approach and carry big civil liberties concerns.

    For a similar reason, we don't put fences around all public parks and require a toll to get in.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2021
  3. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Civil liberties and taxation have nothing to do with each other? Everything in this nation must be funded by taxation! This can be a general tax, excise tax, sales tax, income tax, etc. all of which have nothing to do with civil liberties. If the federal government is spending $6 trillion, and we have about 325 million citizens, this comes to about $18,500 per citizen so why not just send an invoice to every US citizen every year for $18,500? A civil responsibility would be for all Americans to pay their way but this will never happen! I'll suggest 75% of Americans don't pay their $18,500 in taxation each year. Instead of talking about civil liberties how about talking civil responsibilities?
     
  4. Mircea

    Mircea Well-Known Member

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    In this instance it is.

    You want minimal government involvement and minimal government bureaucracy.

    And, you want as few layers of taxation as only necessary to accomplish the mission.

    The federal government needs to rescind the federal excise tax on gasoline and disband the Department of Transportation, which has done nothing but create costly problems, including high housing prices and rents.

    The Department of Transportation, along with Congress has destroyed the interstate/federal highway infrastructure of the US.

    Would the US fall apart?

    No. It would actually work better.

    You can assign the FAA or NTSB to the newly merged Department of Agriculture & Interior, or leave them as independent offices, like the Social Security Administration.

    What about the $0.183/gallon and $0.243/gallon tax on gasoline and diesel?

    What about it? The States would just increase their excises taxes by that much and that'd be the end of it.

    And then States wouldn't have to get on their hands and knees and beg Congress to throw them a bone to build/expand/maintain interstates or US highways that run through their States.

    What you're proposing is Solomon-esque.

    It doesn't require 20 different bureaucracies collecting paltry amounts of taxes to generate the taxes required to build/expand/maintain interstates and US highways.

    And States will act way faster to shift from a gasoline tax to a mileage tax.

    Do you really want the federal government to know how many miles you drive every year?

    That's not a door you wanna open.

    All States have seen dwindling gasoline tax revenues, if not because of greater fuel efficiency, then because of the increasing number of hybrids and electrics on the road, and with respect to diesel taxes, bio-diesel has been eroding that.

    States are in a better position to do it, and do it less intrusively, which is better for your civil liberties.
     

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