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Posted by: Hi_Fi_Guy Nov 18 2004, 03:44 PM

Forget gas taxes; pay by the mile


Oregon to begin testing system that will track miles driven and tax drivers when they fill up.
November 18, 2004: 1:50 PM EST

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - As cars get more fuel-efficient, states counting on gas-tax revenue will feel the pinch. One alternative: tax people based on how many miles they drive, a scheme Oregon will begin testing in 2005.

Here's how Oregon's plan would work, according to James Whitty, an official with the Oregon Department of Transportation who is overseeing the program.

Two devices would be installed in every new car registered in the state: A GPS (for global positioning satellite) device for indicating whether the car is within Oregon's borders, and a second device to count how miles are driven.

The counter would transmit the number of miles driven in Oregon to a receiver on gasoline pumps whenever drivers stop to fill up.

A mileage tax -- instead of a gas tax -- would then be added to the bill.

Oregon plans a test in March or April of 2005 with 20 vehicles registered around the city of Eugene, said Whitty. The state plans to expand the test to 300 vehicles beginning in October or November.

Oregon, said Whitty, depends on gasoline taxes for more than two-thirds of road revenues, which go to contruction and maintenance. While those revenues haven't started declining yet, they will soon as more gas/electric hybrid cars hit the road, Whitty said.

Cars, whether fuel-efficient or not, take up about the same amount of space on roads and cost the state equally in road costs. As a result, said Whitty, they should be taxed the same.

Eventually, Whitty hopes, tracking systems will be factory-installed, more likely if other states adopt similar plans. That is why Whitty is hopeful that California will also institute such a system.

A similar tax idea has been proposed in California, according to several media reports.

Posted by: SLITS Nov 18 2004, 03:47 PM

They can't cost the state equally. Roads are torn up by weight. And I remember California being referred to as the "land of fruits and nuts with the remainder being flakes"

Posted by: Rhodes71/914 Nov 18 2004, 03:50 PM

They will still have to beat the court challangers regarding privacy. It will be a while before we see anything like this, if ever.

Posted by: SirAndy Nov 18 2004, 03:53 PM

maybe they should take a look at what other countries are doing ...

in germany, your car tax is according to the displacement of your engine.
basically, you pay a certain amount per 100cc.
bigger motor = more tax

as long as your car is registered, you have to pay tax (anually),
regardless of miles driven ...

but then again, in germany they also *use* the money to actually build and maintain the roads, unlike california ...
Andy

Posted by: lapuwali Nov 18 2004, 03:54 PM

Hm. Only NEW cars...

If this made it through the system exactly this way, I'll bet the prices of older cars would start to rise, just to escape these devices. "No spy tax!" would appear in ads alongside "No smog required!".

Posted by: Demick Nov 18 2004, 03:55 PM

At least there will be a good use for those giant SUV's with 50 gallon tanks. Drive it to the station and fill up. Go home and pump it into your daily driver. Not much to pay in tax if you just drive to and from the gas station.

Demick

Posted by: Root_Werks Nov 18 2004, 04:29 PM

Posted by: Cloudbuster Nov 18 2004, 04:32 PM

Vice-versa -- a Chevy Sprint with a 100 gallon tank to fill up the SUV.


Great idea going on there:
Add new gizmos to cars
Add new gizmos to gas pumps
Create billing system for the whole mess.
Create new agency to monitor / validate both gizmos
Figure out how categorize vehicles, then tax accordingly
Figure exemptions (boats, lawnmowers etc?) and exciting new fines


Just raise the stinking tax on gasoline and skip the bureaucracy.

Posted by: lapuwali Nov 18 2004, 05:17 PM

I just wonder if this is a real or invented problem. With the popularity of SUVs and the year over year increase in miles driven, I'd think revenues from gas taxes are rising, or at the very least flat. If the gas pump is really a necessary part of the puzzle, then what happens to the all-electrics out there? CARB pushed hard (for all I know, is still pushing hard) for a significant percentage of the cars on the roads to be ZEVs. No way to tax those per-mile with this scheme.

btw, strictly on the privacy issues, if the on-board device transmits ONLY odometer information and simply tacks on the taxes to the price at the pump, there is no privacy issue. They know that some car pulled up to station X at time T, and got G gallons after driving M miles. That's all. The transponder would have to transmit "miles since last fill-up", which presents all kinds of interesting problems with things like driving out of state (where the pumps don't talk to the car). Drive 10 miles in California, pass inot Nevada, drive 500 miles in Nevada with two fillups, then drive 200 miles in CA and fill-up, and it looks like you drove 710 miles since your last fillup, so that one tank gets taxed for those miles driven in Nevada, too. You'd need transponder devices at each border crossing to reset the meter every time you enter California to prevent that problem.

Also, if they allowed older cars to not have the devices, and simply charged them a per-gallon tax (as now) in lieu of the per-mile tax, how many minutes would it be before people with newer fuel-efficient cars obtained a doodad to disable their transponder so they just paid the per-gallon tax? People with older "per-gallon" SUVs would BUY transponders, as the per-mile tax might be cheaper than the per-gallon tax for, say, a Hummer. And fake transponders saying you only drove some random number of miles under 50 each time you pulled up to the pump would no doubt also become available quickly.

Posted by: Tom73 Nov 18 2004, 05:19 PM

Time to give up on the tax per gallon system and tax gas just like sales tax, based on the cost of a gallon of gas.

Posted by: Andy Nov 18 2004, 05:55 PM

They talk about the system having a GPS so they shouldn't need transmitters to reset at the border, it should only log miles traveled when it is inside the state, the GPS should be able to tell it where it is.

Still seems to be a lot of questions though.

Posted by: Dad Roberts Nov 18 2004, 06:34 PM

Andy......I don't think I like the way Germany does it .....I would havta give up my Vdub.. ........Dad......

Posted by: lapuwali Nov 18 2004, 06:53 PM

True. I was looking at the GPS device as being very simple, nothing more than recording differences in position to get speed to calculate distance. Putting in all of the state (and national) borders would be possible, but drastically increases the complexity of the device. The former device (non-state specific) could be made pretty low-power, enough that it doesn't even have to be connected to the car's power system to work. Batteries would last for quite some time. Once the device stops working, you simply revert to the per-gallon tax. The latter, state-specific device would suck up more power, though perhaps not enough to kill the battery idea (would only need the extra power at fill-up time).

Hmph. Interesting problem...

Posted by: rjkavanagh Nov 18 2004, 07:05 PM

Don't forget, implementing this is going to be expensive and California's broke. Arnold doesn't have the money to even think about it.

Posted by: SirAndy Nov 18 2004, 07:53 PM

we're actually talking about Oregon here, but you're right. arnold is broke ...

Andy

Posted by: BiG bOgGs Nov 18 2004, 08:28 PM

Wouldn't it be easier to tax the electric bill of people with eletric cars?

No new tec implimentation or govt agency to pay for.


By the way....if usage of gasoline goes down then price goes down BUT then more people with Hummers like the low price and drive more because gas is cheap. Usage will just keep going up!

And if alternate sources of energy are developed for autos, then I'm sure the government will just start taxing those energies.

Posted by: mharrison Nov 18 2004, 10:25 PM

Go ahead....Just something else fun to mod or hack. Here's my .01 tax. Have a nice day. I wonder if they'll build the logic in or let me transmit a negative number so I get free gas?

Posted by: 3d914 Nov 18 2004, 10:47 PM

Hey guys - you're forgetting the most important potential privacy violation here. Once they have a GPS transponder in your car - you know it won't be long before they're used to control speeding as well -- COUNT ON IT!!

Enjoy - if you can!