Coming to Maine Soon --- A Mileage Tax?

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Let's pretend someone waves a magic wand and turns every car into a fuel-sipping, gas-electric hybrid. What difference would it make?The air would be cleaner.Oil imports would drop.And the transportation budgets of Oregon, Washington and almost every other state would deflate like a punctured balloon.Think about it: Most money for highway construction and maintenance comes from state and federal taxes on gasoline. If people bought a lot less gas, highways would get a lot less money.In Oregon, a state task force has concluded this scenario isn't all that far-fetched. It has proposed a possible long-term replacement for the gas tax, something no one has tried before:A tax based on how many miles you drive.The Oregon Road User Fee Task Force has spent two years fleshing out the concept, thinking through how such a tax might be calculated and collected. Now it's ready to test its ideas in the real world.At the panel's request, Oregon State University researchers have developed technology that can distinguish miles driven in Oregon from those driven elsewhere, then allow a mileage tax to be calculated and paid at the pump in place of the state gas tax.Next year, the researchers' mileage-recording devices are to be installed on 400 private cars in Eugene. Some of the volunteers will become the first people in the country to pay road taxes based not on how much fuel they burn, but on how far they travel.A mileage tax has been discussed in Washington, too — not as a replacement for the gas tax, but as a supplement to it. A bill allowing the Regional Transportation Investment District to propose one to King, Snohomish and Pierce county voters cleared the state House of Representatives earlier this year. It died in the Senate, in part because no one could say exactly how the tax might work.Don't Give the Democrats Any More Ideas![ 09-27-2004: Message edited by: Bob Stone ]

OH Joy! A new way to steal from us. :roll:

Mileage tax considered for upkeep of highways
Technology will enable charging for road use

By Ashley Halsey III
Washington Post / February 7, 2010

WASHINGTON - Within a few years, a driver who pulls up to the gas pump may pay two bills with a single swipe of a credit card: one for the gas and the other for each mile driven since the last fill-up.

That may be the result of what many transportation experts see as an inevitable revolution in the way Americans pay for their highways.

Source

The fairest way to pay for the system in my opinion. The ultimate "pay as you go" program. Evey AMGer should rejoice that it would be possible to pay for the roads in this state by those that use them the most.

And the money is GUARANTEED to actually be used for road repairs, right? Like the money Augusta doles out to the DOT every year, right?

Bridge for sale.... bridge for sale.....

Dreamers..... a single tax for the amount of miles driven??? There will still be state and federal gas taxes.... This is just the perfect opportunity to add another fee. Question, are there going to be different tax rates for vehicles that have 4,6 0r 8 cylinders? Will hybrids pay less?Will we give a tax holiday to incoming tourists??Will government vehicles be exempt? Ah the list goes on.

It seems Bob that in the halls and offices of the bureaucratic critters, the radio is playing their theme song. "Tax Man" by the Beatles.

If this happens, guess I will walk more.

TM, if they did create a mileage tax would you support dropping all of the other fuel taxes/fees?

That's a rhetorical question, right Mark?

Mark - good idea. I'm sure we could also eliminate the excise tax, too! After all, if mileage is the fairest way to charge for road maintenance, why have a separate municipal fee for excise?

Eliminate the fuel tax and excise tax and I would be happy to do a miles travelled tax, I mean fee. Otherwise it is just an added tax that we don't need.

How would DOT keep track of your mileage?

I've heard of a fuel pump that reads the computer in your car and adds the charges to the gas price. I guess the pump would keep track of the taxes collected so the dealer could send it in. Can you imagine the cost to implement a system like that?

Maybe if government has enough cameras they'll know every move we make and can just send us a bill.

As we speak, there's a prototype computer engine implant being used in Maine, one that tracks total mileage. I believe there was a thread on the program several months ago, regarding an article looking for willing victims (oops, volunteers) who would be paid to have these doo-dads implanted in their vehicles.

Mark, absolutely. I wouldnt support it if the state gas tax was still in place. I assume it wouldnt be for federal taxes or the excise tax for local roads, but if it was going to replace those revenues, I would support it as well. The idea would be to come up with a total cost for whatever this new tax was going to replace then charge a per mile fee accordingly. I am sure some Augusta crat has the estimate already for the amount of miles driven in Maine each year.

Doesn't the current system tax those who vehicles get low miles per gallon more? Why would we want to change that?

The current gas tax, for all its faults, encourages fuel conservation.

TM wants the gas tax to work just like the property tax. Decide how much the government wants to spend then come up with a rate that extorts that amount from the poeple. No thanks.

Even if we went to a mileage tax versus a gas tax and excise tax ... I don't think the feds are going to drop their 184 cents per gallon portion of the gasoline tax. So, no matter how you look at it, even if we got rid of it at the state level ... we would never be able to get rid of it at the federal level.

Miles traveled on private roads will be exempt, of course, won't they?

Maybe if government has enough cameras they'll know every move we make and can just send us a bill.

Not to worry Doug...Soon every aspect of our lives will be monitored..Every website logged , every e-mail read , every phone call monitored , every purchase tracked , ect , ect....I wish I was kidding...

The fairest way to pay for the system in my opinion. The ultimate "pay as you go" program.

I already pay as I go as do you. I pay for the freight on everything I buy, I am taxed as well as the transportation company. That computer you use didn't just walk into the door by itself.

This plan can also be thought of from a conservation standpoint . The cost of transportation goes up so companies use trains more and cut back on rural truck deliveries. People start to car pool more and ride bikes and use buses or trains . Therefore the road usage goes way down . So how do we get enough money for road repairs as the increased usage tax has decreased the usage and most of our roads needed repairs at the start of the tax and roads also fall into disrepair when not used? Perhaps we raise the tax so those who still use the roads cover the extra cost so more people find ways to cut back on their mileage and some clever geek finds a way to hack the system and sells it on the black market . The roads get crappier,the economy suffers and getting around is more miserable and the foliage tours end because the new prices aren't affordable by those on a fixed income .Another dysfunctional , shortsighted idea by government which will probably be imlemented because that's how they think!

The only reason this would come up is conservation. After harping on us to conserve by buying hybrids or more fuel efficient cars we did. Guess what now revenues via the gas tax are down, are we driving less, maybe. But if you are getting 24mpg instead of 12mpg that means you are buying less gas thus less tax revenue. Plus because we have little industry and tourism is the number one business will visitors be exempt? Will 100% of the burden fall to what few taxpayers are left?

This is an excellent plan. I drive older stuff that still gets a sticker so that makes the tax man angry anyway, but the ethanol in the fuel surely has decreased my MPG anyway causing me to stop more frequently and buy more gallons of reduced quality fuel. Add the mileage tax and the plan to persecute small business in central/northern maine will have the desired effect to depopulate and re-wild the state as Dr. Michael Coffman fought against the UN treaty (that was real but didn't exist, wink) back in the middle 1990s.

The cost to install the equipment would be enormous..... and the fuel marketers will pass the cost on to the consumers..... And there are many gasoline stations that have older type pumps(mechanical) that currently don't support much of the existing technology such as credit card readers. This would be a the death knell for many mom and pop stores .Can the politicians get any dumber?

No Michelle, but can't you just let a guy dream once in awhile? :-)
Needless to say, I'm not surprised TM doesn't want to let the excise tax go with that idea.

Since the guv keeps reminding us that we're a tourism based economy, how do tourists pay for the miles travelled? Or do we just pay for them too?

A per mileage tax does not differentiate between large gas guzzlers and small fuel efficient cars. Or even large fuel efficient vehicles. The fairest tax is one that taxes the amount of energy consumed. A tax on each gallon of gas is by far the fairest tax. But that doesn’t accomplish the real motive.

What a mileage tax would do, by using the existing technology of a remotely read gps unit, is allow big brother to know where you are at any time and just how fast you are traveling. But then, as someone here recently suggested, if you aren’t doing anything wrong, why would you care?

Because of who determines if where and what I am doing is wrong. Instead of paying the mileage tax at the pump why not when you register your car, they already ask for the mileage.