Veggie-oil vehicle owners in a legal pickle

Seems we could take care of two birds with one stone here.
Eliminate gas taxes & instead collect based on miles & vehicle weight. Do it through the insurance companies and for those states that permit you not to have insurance, you have to either drop by the DMV or a certified insurance company for meter reading.

Not only would people actually pay their fair share or road upkeep, but I suspect we would start seeing the state enforcing insurance laws a lot more aggressively.

The state is eventually going to either have to do something like this, or taxing electricity, or just increasing other taxes to pay for roads as EV/PHEVs become more common and eventually dominate the road. Better to start on policy now that wait until they are 10 years in the red.


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Why is it, there have been converted cars since at least the 80s, but we are just now hearing about the tax issue? You would think the govenment would have let people know earlier, when it was just a niche market, that they should be paying taxes...even if they weren't going to go after them at the time.

 

Not a huge deal yet, but we'll clearly need a new tax system to keep roads maintained. Just as social security cannot fund baby boomer retirement on the backs of fewer workers, tax on liquid fuel for roads doesn't get it done when we mostly recharge our PHEV's from the grid.

Maybe RFID toll system, who knows? 1984?

 

Get ready folks. This is just the tip of the iceberg for a lot "green" tech. many of which aren't even for transportation.

For example, the highest energy goal for a building is NET 0. The goal of a Net 0 is for a property to use as much electricity as is consumes. The reason no one plans on building a house beyond net 0 is because it's illegal to build a structure that constantly produces more energy than it can use. Most designs that go Net 0 could easily go beyond that, but few would want or could afford the legal wrath of your local power monopoly.

Though in the defense of the local government. Those gas taxes are spent on the road infrastructure, and without there'd be no safe roads/bridges to drive on. Though I think they're should be a better way for them to collect this money from the home fuel producers.

Just wait you're going to see similar moves against electric cars soon too. They (the government) got 2 years till the Volt comes (or so they say) and if GM's planning on 200,000 of these babies thats alot of lost gas tax revenue.

 

its crazy

 

It is a pickle.

Roads take $ to maintane - the tax on fuel was a good measure for road usage - and this seemed fair as a method for a usage tax.

With alternaive fuels come into play - the usage equation goes into a mess.

Can there be some other method for it?
annual Mileage checks and weight calculations?

I do not know - but it will be an issue in several years before the equation gets out of wack.

Until then - keep Green - Keep Clean - Keep on doing what we do.

Steve

 

and the tax's paid from plates,, etc ,,,i need a horse

 

This is insane. Owners of hybrids, electric, and non-gasoline vehicles should not be taxed just because they don't use gasoline! If ANYTHING they should be rewarded with tax cuts/credits.

The government should really just become more effecient and stop WASTING so much money and terminate/eject the people from the government who do. I know this is overly idealistic, however think about ALL THE MONEY that would be actually **available** if the government stopped spending it so liberally and uneconomically.

 

So... will doing upkeep on half a bridge keep the whole thing from falling down?? Bottom line infrastructure is hurting as it is... the gas tax is 18.4 cents a gallon... state taxes vary... total taxes on a gal of gas is something like 59.6 cents a gallon here in NY...
The government seems to be taking the wrong approach here... but bottom line is everyone who uses the roads has to pay IMO... I work in transportation and see the sorry state of our economy and we can't just let roads/bridges etc go unmaintained or there will be some catastrophic events...
Remember... new construction costs more than proper maintnance... if it means you bio guys pay 18.4 cents a gallon for your grease... well then thats saving 1.80 over what I pay at the pump for reg/unld...

 

I've met a number of people who make their own fuel (either homebrew biodiesel or WVO/SVO). My impression is that many of them would be perfectly content to pay the nominal amount of tax on the fuel, but don't do it because they fear that by registering and filing the forms they will attract unwanted attention of the authorities.

As it stands, the number of people doing this is so small that the overall impact impact on overall tax revenue and road maintenance is minute. I agree with Pierce that the government should actually be encouraging this (for now), and gives out so many tax credits for other alternative energy purposes that to go after these people is absurd anyway.

But conradpdx is right, local officials are getting increasingly worried as alternative fuels (and FE generally) increase in popularity. As more and more vehicles get involved, the case for incentives diminishes and we'll need to start talking about making sure EVERYONE contributes to road maintenance. There is going to have to be SOME kind of solution.

Here in Oregon a weight-mile tax for passenger vehicles gets proposed pretty much every biennium, and is even more likely to come up again in the next session. I'm sure Kngkeith can testify that we already have such a system in place for truckers -- their diesel is cheaper than passenger cars' diesel because they're exempt from fuel tax, but must weigh in and pay taxes as they enter and leave the state. My impression is the truckers hate it, and it would be even harder to make it work for cars -- do you make every vehicle stop every time it enters or leaves the state? Just here on I-5 and I-205 in Portland, we have a couple hundred thousand border crossings per day.

 

Now that we are in a recession, maybe the truck traffic will slow down and we
will see less maintenance needed.
Every time a trucker slams one of the bridges around here, it costs us millions,
plus about a million drivers get to sit in their cars for extra 4 or 5 hours on their way to work.

Sadly, paying off all these bail-outs is going to put infrastructure repairs on the back burner
for the next 10 years. Get ready to hit some really big pot holes..

 

I agree that too many accidents happen with trucks that can be avoided outright rather easily...
Depending where you live... salts used for snow removal play a big role in the wear life roadways and structures. Steel doesn't like salt and its nice because in the 50s/60s/70s we thought it was a good idea to use lead based paint... which we now have to have special containment to take care of and repaint to save our steel structures...
Trucks hitting bridges is a little outside the scope of maintnance though... and those companies do pay for the stuff they F up... probably not as much as they should...

Dont even get me started on the bailouts!!!!

 

Roads need to be maintained - and if Gas Consumption is no longer a viable method for determining a persons road usage - then another must be found.

No one wants to be taxed - but some money needs to be spent in certain areas.

Why not have an annual regestriation fee based upon Odometer reading ( for actual miles) and Gross Weight. This would remove the fuel source from the equation ( and remove the taxes there from)

People with heavy SUV's / trucks do more "damage" than light cars - and people who drive less do less "Damage" than those who drive more.

This makes the usage more inline with what is actually being done.

Could some one get a credit for switching from a LARGER weight car to a smaller one? Sure - that would encourage smaller cars.

So if a person reduces the size of there car - and finds alternative transportation to recuce driven miles - they would pay LESS...

Steve

 

I only want to pay for the miles traveled in each state, or let the state my vehicle is registered in share the profits with all the other states for road maint.

 

I like this idea. We already do an annual (or semi-annual here in Missouri) registration, so why not roll this in with it?

The only issue I can see with it is that those that fail to register the vehicle won't be paying, and license plate thefts will go up (it's already a problem in Missouri).

 

Also, odometer fraud will once again become widespread, as it was in the '70s.