Mileage tax instead of per gallon gas tax. (Tacoma: utilities, income)

[Garfunkle524]

Originally Posted by Botev1912

How is this fair?

Something like this is not meant to be fair. When the government gets less of your money than it wants, it passes new tax initiatives. Some people here and there might save a little, but make no mistake, there would be no motivation to consider something like this unless it increased the amount of money flowing from you to the government.

[wutitiz]

The plan is moving forward this very week. According to Chris Sullivan of KIRO, the traffic commission will meet this week to discuss options. They don't even know yet whether it would replace or supplement the gas tax.

Sorry, no link yet, but it's something to watch for in the coming week. Oregon reportedly already has a pilot program in place.

[sean98125]

Cars are getting more and more fuel efficient every year. A per mile tax makes a lot more sense than a per gallon tax, which will be an ever-decreasing revenue source. A Nissan Leaf or a Tesla S takes up just as much road space and causes just as much wear and tear on the road as a Nissan Versa or a Toyota Camry.

[StealthRabbit]

Living rural (all my life) would be very bad on a mileage based tax. But our minority vote doesn't count anyway. (We should be a 'protected status' so we could have internet!)

WA state may have fun tracking me as I have 34 cars / trucks (Most are 'free-fuel' grease burners). and spend most my driving time in other states.


Since I've been getting 50+ mpg since 1976.... (No dinosaurs or OPEC required)


I prefer a fuel tax (of which WA places in the top 10 in USA)

[wutitiz]

Washington pay-by-mile pilot program approval expected

Here's a link now on the story from King5. It says that the commission is expected to approve a pilot project, which will have to be approved by the legislature in Jan.

I would like to see the commission look into why the new 520 bridge will cost 18 times more than the old one, which was designed and built in the slide-rule/drafting table era.

My fear is that they will try to keep the gas tax and tack on the mileage tax. IMO they should get one or the other, but not both.

[PS90]

Originally Posted by wutitiz

Washington pay-by-mile pilot program approval expected

Here's a link now on the story from King5. It says that the commission is expected to approve a pilot project, which will have to be approved by the legislature in Jan.

I would like to see the commission look into why the new 520 bridge will cost 18 times more than the old one, which was designed and built in the slide-rule/drafting table era.

My fear is that they will try to keep the gas tax and tack on the mileage tax. IMO they should get one or the other, but not both.

I agree, but how many times have we heard that old excuse? How many times have they promised to reduce one tax in lieu of another, but then it never actually went down?

This sounds like a logistical nightmare to me. How will they track it - I've heard they are talking about GPS or a smartphone app. What is the cost of adding GPS to everyone's car in the state? Or a "required" smartphone app? What about people who don't own a smartphone? (I just got my first smartphone about a month ago. Still not sure if it's worth it.)

How many DOT officials will they have to hire to oversee this thing and crunch all these driving numbers? Will there be any tax money left after paying all these new people?

[jm31828]

Originally Posted by PS90

I agree, but how many times have we heard that old excuse? How many times have they promised to reduce one tax in lieu of another, but then it never actually went down?

This sounds like a logistical nightmare to me. How will they track it - I've heard they are talking about GPS or a smartphone app. What is the cost of adding GPS to everyone's car in the state? Or a "required" smartphone app? What about people who don't own a smartphone? (I just got my first smartphone about a month ago. Still not sure if it's worth it.)

How many DOT officials will they have to hire to oversee this thing and crunch all these driving numbers? Will there be any tax money left after paying all these new people?

This is exactly my worry- the administrative overhead will end up being 75% of what we are paying for if they implement this disaster, so only a small tiny fraction of that money will go directly to roads. I could only possibly ever support doing something like this if the formula used for how much we pay is based on the exact dollar amount needed for the roads and only the roads (not a penny more than the actual upkeep/upgrading of roads- none going to the general fund or any other projects), and that the gas tax is then completely dropped, so essentially we end up paying roughly the same per year in gas taxes as we did back in the day when the gas tax did cover roads completely, when we were driving less fuel efficient vehicles.


Another unfair thing with this is that the gas tax is for paying for highways. What about those of us who rarely drive on a highway, almost all of our driving is on regular city/suburban streets? Those are funded in other ways through local governments, with property taxes, sales tax, etc. So gas tax was never a part of the formula for upkeep on those roads- so why should we have to start paying for every mile we drive on those roads? And will sales tax or property taxes go down then to remove the money allocated to local streets?

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by jm31828

This is exactly my worry- the administrative overhead will end up being 75% of what we are paying for if they implement this disaster,...

Same with WA adopting CARB. Huge infrastructure cost and extra burden on consumer.
The emission reduction is peanuts, not expected to be significant for over 25 yrs.

We could have intelligently introduced conservation and alternative fuel measures that would have had greater impact TODAY than a forced compliance with CARB.

Very, very simple, and WA residents would be an excellent bunch to pilot a nationwide meaningful conservation program that would dwarf CARB results for NO COST to state or consumers. We have the willingness, incentive, technology, and environment.

[PS90]

Originally Posted by jm31828

Another unfair thing with this is that the gas tax is for paying for highways. What about those of us who rarely drive on a highway, almost all of our driving is on regular city/suburban streets? Those are funded in other ways through local governments, with property taxes, sales tax, etc. So gas tax was never a part of the formula for upkeep on those roads- so why should we have to start paying for every mile we drive on those roads? And will sales tax or property taxes go down then to remove the money allocated to local streets?

Agreed. Furthermore, I haven't yet heard if an idea is in the works to offset the loss in gas taxes paid by out-of-staters who are driving through WA.

Oh wait - that only matters if they actually plan to repeal the gas tax when this is implemented. And we know that will never happen.

[Hemlock140]

Those of us that drive a lot in other states may have to go with the GPS to avoid over paying, an I'm sure that device won't be free. This is not a good idea financially, anyway, because it will reduce driving even more than the gas tax and high prices. People will flock to public transportation and overwhelm the system, and the state will end up with less money. Like the 520 bridge and now the 99/Viaduct tunnel replacement (today the news is about a sink hole/crack on 1st Ave) neither SDOT nor our leaders in Olympia seem very competent at making decisions.