Report a Comment

Taxing fuel is a simpler and cheaper option, but it is at best an indirect way to account for changes in traffic volume, especially with the recent push towards better-fuel-economy vehicles. So I'm not sure it's better.

And as we've seen, a set tax-per-gallon cannot account for inflation.

Taxing vehicles by miles driven will still have the inflation problem, but will truly make it a road user fee and will directly account for miles driven.

That said, I'm not comfortable with how a per-mile-tax (or VMT tax as you're putting it) is proceeding, not so much because of the "privacy intrusions" that Squalish is concerned with, but because GPS technology, while excellent for wayfinding and tracking, is still imperfect.

At one point, I offered the idea of a national "VMT tax" based on odometer readings...checked annually when you renew your license tabs or sold/traded in the car. But the problem with that is I could easily see people tinkering with their car to roll back their odometers and thereby not be charged for mileage.

So we're stuck with the gas tax, such as it is.

I see Squalish is concentrating on "reducing gasoline consumption" in his post, but there's far more to the issue than just that.

by Froggie on Nov 8, 2008 7:16 am • link • report