States Look to Tax Motorists based on Miles Driven

[henryj]

Several states are exploring ways of taxing motorists based on the number of miles driven per year as fuel efficiency has outpaced the federal gasoline tax, according to a USA Today story.

Minnesota and Oregon launched programs that track the miles driven by motorists via a GPS-equipped phone or similar device. Nevada and Washington are ready to launch a pilot program to test the states’ own vehicle miles-travel tax.

Politicians are struggling to figure out a way to adequately fund state and federal road and bridge repairs for the future. The federal gasoline tax of 18.4 cents hasn’t been increased in nearly two decades, and few politicians seem eager to increase it.

Increased fuel efficiency has also reduced the amount of money collected by the federal and state gasoline tax. Also, politicians will soon have to figure out a way to fairly tax electric vehicles.

The vehicle miles-travel tax seems to be one route many states, including Texas, have explored.

Under the system, drivers would be charged based on the number of miles driven per year. The mileage would be tracked via a GPS-equipped phone or similar device.

Josh Schank, president of the non-partisan ENO Center for Transportation, told USA Today that he expects to see a state vehicle miles-traveled tax within five to 10 years.

“As the (national vehicle) fleet becomes more fuel efficient…we’re going to lose a lot of revenue from the gas tax,” he told the newspaper. “If it’s not replaced, we’re going to see our transportation infrastructure deteriorate.”

But drivers have been wary of a vehicle miles-tax because of the inherit privacy concerns.

Some states are exploring using the car’s onboard technology to remotely send the data to officials or using a pre-pay or unlimited mileage system. James Whitty, a manager at the Oregon Department of Transportation, said wrote in a Bloomberg column that officials must do something to fund future infrastructure.

He wrote the system could eventually tailored into an easy and simple process for drivers.

“Paying the mileage tax could be as simple as paying a utility bill,” Whitty wrote.

 

[Ryan]

You don't need any of that fancy electronics junk, just have people fill out odometer statements annually.

You're required to document the odometer any time you transfer the title. You can cheat for a while, but you'll have to pay the piper whenever you decide to sell.

For states that have annual vehicle inspections, you can do spot checks at that point in time as well.

Even better, make the tax based on miles traveled * vehicle weight. Heavy vehicles do exponentially more damage to the road surface than light ones.

 

[Ozark Southern]

My first question is that if they're going to use a phone, how will they know whether the phone is located in the phone's owner's car? I expect they would assume that if the phone is traveling faster than 5MPH, that person is in their car. But let's say I'm carpooling in my friend's car. My friend also has a GPS-equipped phone. We both are traveling 40MPH. Are we both charged for mileage? What if I am on a bus or train going 40MPH? I actually have no problem with a mileage-based tax, but these questions will have to be satisfactorily resolved.

I wonder why they have rejected just reading the odometer? They have to have thought of that, and it would be simple to read it and collect the tax when the car's plates are renewed or when the car is sold. True, odometers can be tampered with, but that's already illegal. Make changing the odometer a matter of tax evasion, and enforce it.

 

[GoldenSpike]

Another example of governmental snooping and intrusion with creative taxation at the same time?

 

Perhaps this might provide a solution in the future:

 

Mandatory ‘Big Brother’ Black Boxes In All New Cars From 2015

 

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Even better, make the tax based on miles traveled * vehicle weight. Heavy vehicles do exponentially more damage to the road surface than light ones.

YES. It would be the only fair way to implement a 'road miles traveled' tax, and would (generally) reward drivers of vehicles that get better MPG.

 

[PRR 60]

Even better, make the tax based on miles traveled * vehicle weight. Heavy vehicles do exponentially more damage to the road surface than light ones.

YES. It would be the only fair way to implement a 'road miles traveled' tax, and would (generally) reward drivers of vehicles that get better MPG.

Doesn't the gas tax do that now? Heavier vehicles use more gas. Less efficient vehicles use more gas. If the problem is the gas tax being too low, then have the guts to propose raising it. Don't introduce one more invasion of privacy as an end-run around the real problem.

 

[Ryan]

Where's the invasion of privacy?

And the gas tax doesn't do that now. Damage increases with weight far more quickly than fuel economy declines.

My old Suburban weighed about 6,000 pounds and got about 14 MPG.

A loaded tractor trailer weighs in at about 80,000 pounds, making it ~13 times as heavy.

Roughly speaking, damage goes up with the fourth power, so if I've done my math right, the tractor trailer does about 28500 times as much damage as my old Suburban. For your claim that the gas tax does that now, the tractor trailer would have to get 1/28500th the mileage as my truck, or .0004 MPG. Given a typical 300 gallon fuel tank, that tractor trailer would be about to go about 0.1 miles between fillups.

Obviously, this isn't the case, and the MPG differential doesn't come anywhere near accounting for the road damage done by heavy vehicles.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Even better, make the tax based on miles traveled * vehicle weight. Heavy vehicles do exponentially more damage to the road surface than light ones.

YES. It would be the only fair way to implement a 'road miles traveled' tax, and would (generally) reward drivers of vehicles that get better MPG.

Doesn't the gas tax do that now? Heavier vehicles use more gas. Less efficient vehicles use more gas. If the problem is the gas tax being too low, then have the guts to propose raising it. Don't introduce one more invasion of privacy as an end-run around the real problem.

Do they pay more? Yes. However, you could run my sedan over the same pavement thousands of times in a row and not do anywhere near as much damage as one pass from a fully loaded semi or large bus style RV or heavy construction vehicle. We can call it "fair" just as soon as the vehicles that do 1,000x more damage pay 1,000x more taxes.

Edit: Damn, too slow! -_-

 

[PRR 60]

Where's the invasion of privacy?

And the gas tax doesn't do that now. Damage increases with weight far more quickly than fuel economy declines.

My old Suburban weighed about 6,000 pounds and got about 14 MPG.

A loaded tractor trailer weighs in at about 80,000 pounds, making it ~13 times as heavy.

Roughly speaking, damage goes up with the fourth power, so if I've done my math right, the tractor trailer does about 28500 times as much damage as my old Suburban. For your claim that the gas tax does that now, the tractor trailer would have to get 1/28500th the mileage as my truck, or .0004 MPG. Given a typical 300 gallon fuel tank, that tractor trailer would be about to go about 0.1 miles between fillups.

Obviously, this isn't the case, and the MPG differential doesn't come anywhere near accounting for the road damage done by heavy vehicles.

As a civil engineer who started his career in highway design with PennDOT, that "fourth power" factor is pure fiction. If that were the case, then highways like the B-W Parkway that ban trucks would never need repaving. Sure, high-weight trucks affect highways more than lower-weight cars, but the factor is closer to a straight line than it is some wild exponential. Even design elements are not that much different. Pavements and sub-pavements need a certain thickness just to spread any load to the soil. The minimum thickness for cars verses truck loads is not even a straight-line factor. So, no, a truck does not do 28,500 more damage than your old tank: or even 28 times.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

As a civil engineer who started his career in highway design with PennDOT, that "fourth power" factor is pure fiction. If that were the case, then highways like the B-W Parkway that ban trucks would never need repaving.

I don't see that as a logical conclusion. Repaving schedules often have surprisingly little to do with actual need. There will also be deterioration of the roadbed by things other than weight as well, including warmer weather and stronger storms that we're slowly becoming more and more accustomed to. Then there are factors such as what the roadbed is made of, how much weight the road was designed to handle, and for how long. Have you ever watched a series of midsized sedans squish warm pavement into a lumpy mess or crack cold pavement into a several pieces? Twenty years of "no new taxes" is leaving our budgets with insufficient funding. I'm curious how you would handle that since by my reckoning any raise of the gas tax would be severely punished by the American electorate.

 

[Ryan]

As a civil engineer who started his career in highway design with PennDOT, that "fourth power" factor is pure fiction. If that were the case, then highways like the B-W Parkway that ban trucks would never need repaving.

If damage caused by traffic was the only thing that caused pavement to deteriorate, maybe. Even the BW Parkway still sees heavy vehicles such as buses.

Sure, high-weight trucks affect highways more than lower-weight cars, but the factor is closer to a straight line than it is some wild exponential.

I'll stick with the published studies with data and numbers and stuff. If you have any that back up your claim, I'd be happy to read them.

EVEN IF we are to accept your claim that the damage is straight-line, that means that the truck weighing 13 times more than the Suburban would need to get ~1 MPG (14/13 to be exact). That's still way off of the difference.

Either way, it's painfully obvious that differences in MPG do not account for road damage by weight due to differing fuel efficiency.

 

[AlanB]

I'm not going to get into the debate of just how much more damage trucks cause than cars. I will however add two things for consideration here. First, I've known PRR60 now for many years IRL and I for one do trust him to post factual information.

Second, while I cannot say that it is still enough or not, trucks do pay more towards the roads in other ways beyond the idea that they simply burn more fuel. 1) The Federal fuel tax is 18.4 cents per gallon for gas, which is what most cars use. The Federal fuel tax for diesel fuel is 24.4 cents per gallon, which is what most trucks use. Truck also pay a hefty tire tax, and they pay a diesel engine tax. 2) Trucks pay far more than cars do in licensing fees than do car owners. In fact, unlike cars, most trucks need a special license from the states that they drive through. If they don't have that license, then they must pay a fee if they get caught driving through that state without the special sticker.

 

[John Bredin]

Just because there's little will in Congress to raise the federal gas tax doesn't stop the states from imposing or increasing their own gasoline/diesel fuel tax to pay for transportation investment.

Yes, many taxpayers will grouse if/when a state legislature does so. But they'll grouse at least as much over a proposal such as in the OP. Probably grouse more, actually, for the logistical/privacy issues already stated. Even if it's not perceived by Joe Citizen as a privacy issue -- the use of the publically-financed roads in public is IMHO not a matter of privacy, and that ship sailed with toll transponders anyhow -- using some complicated method of collecting a brand-new tax "smells" worse (more bureaucratic, less efficient) than just increasing the rate of an existing tax.

 

[SarahZ]

I thought that's why I paid my registration every year. What is that money used for, then?

I figure part of it is used to fund the roads; it just seems strange to pay more on top of that.

I'm not too concerned. I drive about 3000 miles/year.

 

[Trogdor]

With the increasing availability of vehicles that use little to no petroleum-based fuel, the gasoline tax will do less and less to cover the actual cost of roadway usage.

 

[jis]

With the increasing availability of vehicles that use little to no petroleum-based fuel, the gasoline tax will do less and less to cover the actual cost of roadway usage.

That is true. Already with my current car I buy gas only once a month or so. With my next car it will be pretty much zero times a month. The only time I'll buy gasoline will be for an occasional very long trip

 

[Bob Dylan]

Interesting thread! Is Amtrak, as a quasi-Government Agency, Exempt from Taxes on Diesel???

Here in Austin the new "By-Pass" Toll Roads that were built to help reduce the Parking Lot Traffic on IH35 charge Trucks much more than cars (believe its by the axle) so as a result the tolls aren't what they were expected to be and the State is having to subsidize the Foriegn Investors that own the Toll Roads! (which leaves almost Vacant 8 Lane Toll Roads and a congested 24/7 IH35 through the City of Austin!)FWIW, the NIMBYs (Trains make too much noise in my Condo next to the Tracks! ) that want the tracks that run through downtown moved outide of town have a scheme to run the new Tracks down the Median of the Toll Roads!Wonder if the State will charge Amtrak and UP Tolls!

Lastly, when I was a kid Louisiana had a provision in their Law that Trucks had to purchase Diesel or Gas IN the Pelican State in order to drive through on State Roads, not sure if this is still the case but Texas and Mississippi had lower Fuel Prices so we'd always Gas-up before driving through the Swamps! :giggle:

 

[PRR 60]

Interesting thread! Is Amtrak, as a quasi-Government Agency Exempt from Taxes on Diesel???

...

Yes, Amtrak is exempt from all fuel taxes and most local taxes (real estate, sales, etc.). Amtrak's highway vehicles have federal government registration and are exempt from state licensing fees and inspections.

 

[Anderson]

Doing a spot check at state inspection time and/or handling things as part of vehicle registration seems logical to me. I've got a number of issues with the GPS method of handling things, however:

1) Ok, let's shoot the elephant in the room right off. Divorce proceedings. If Mrs. Smith files for divorce against Mr. Smith, citing the vehicle GPS records is a gold mine. Not to condone cheating or visiting strip clubs, but this sort of thing is going to be an issue. And of course, this is a nice proxy for all other sorts of common misbehavior (legal or otherwise).

-A worthwhile question: Could someone engaged in illicit activities sue to remove the transmitter under the fifth amendment (i.e. that the blanket presence of such transmitters violates protections against self-incrimination), or alternatively sue for the right to have archival records blanked regularly absent a warrant? The legal precedent on this front is a mixed bag, but I'm guessing that there's some way that you could at least force a records purge upon having someone check "miles traveled" and paying the mileage tax owed.

--Actually, another point: Could someone make a claim to demand that speed information be redacted? There seems like a lot of room for abuse to just slap people with speeding fines.

-Another worthwhile question: Do states intend to exempt travel not on government-maintained roads? There are gated communities in parts of Virginia where one could easily either not leave or where one could only leave to literally go "across the street" to a supermarket most of the time. If you draw a one-mile circle around Kingsmill, pretty soon you'll have everything from a large hospital (well, for the area) to a supermarket to a number of professional offices...which could mean that most of some folks' driving is entirely within the neighborhood. Same song, different chorus would be travel on farm roads (and there are probably some farmer-owned vehicles that never leave the property). I'm assuming that there would be some pressure for a rebate policy.

2) As mentioned before, assuming that a phone is used...what if I leave my phone at home? If you make a long commute frequently, a simple way to beat this would be to get a second phone added to a "friends and family" plan of some sort, have them both ring from a common number, and just leave one at home and one at the office. For a 25-mile daily commute, that's going to drop over a thousand miles per month off of your measured travel; whacking 12000 miles off of measured travel would save $120/year per cent per mile, so it's a good question as to how much the tax would need to be to offset something like this.

-And of course, a fun connected issue is the "multiple phones in the car" issue, as well as the "phone moving but not in the car" issue (let's face it, outside of the Northeast, most rural interstate speed limits are close enough to the 79 MPH limit that a phone on a train would look like you were just taking a long distance trip with a digestive condition).

Like I said, I'm not 100% opposed to taxing mileage...it is the verification system that I've got an issue with. However, I would point out that simply bumping the gas tax up to make up for the loss in revenue from increased vehicle efficiency would be a good way to encourage a migration to more efficient vehicles over time.

One point to be made (and indeed noted in the article) is that a lot of this is a side-effect of an unwillingness to touch the gas tax, something that is a side-effect of America's codependent relationship with the automobile. Compare the fuel duty in Britain, which has roughly doubled over the last twenty years.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

Here in Austin the new "By-Pass" Toll Roads that were built to help reduce the Parking Lot Traffic on IH35 charge Trucks much more than cars (believe its by the axle) so as a result the tolls aren't what they were expected to be and the State is having to subsidize the Foriegn Investors that own the Toll Roads! (which leaves almost Vacant 8 Lane Toll Roads and a congested 24/7 IH35 through the City of Austin!)FWIW, the NIMBYs that want the tracks that run through downtown moved outide of town there is a scheme to run the new Tracks down the Median of the Toll Roads!Wonder if the state will charge Amtrak and UP Tolls!

They are building 'HOT' (High-Occupancy/Toll) lanes on the Beltway and I-95 here in Northern VA. The cost to drive on them will vary based on several different factors - the number of occupants and the amount of congestion on the non-toll lanes being the primary ones. A driver will be required to 'rent' a transponder for the privilage of using the lanes. This is not sitting well with many locals partially because the lanes are being financed by 'foriegn investors.' There has already been talk about the unfairness of this practice, as well as concern that people will be reluctant to use the lanes because, with varying tolls, folks will not be certain what it will actually cost.

Nice to know that similar projects have been so successful elsewhere. ^_^

I thought I smelled boondoggle. :lol:

 

[The Davy Crockett]

One point to be made (and indeed noted in the article) is that a lot of this is a side-effect of an unwillingness to touch the gas tax, something that is a side-effect of America's codependent relationship with the automobile. Compare the fuel duty in Britain, which has roughly doubled over the last twenty years.

As a culture we seem reluctant to actually pay our individual true share.

It will be close to impossible to raise the gas tax.

This fight has been going on for years here in VA. Northern VA needs money for transportation. Northern VA pays more to the state than it gets back. The rest of VA likes it just that way, and trying to get more money for transportation up here from 'down there' has been worse than pulling teeth.

 

[Trogdor]

-Another worthwhile question: Do states intend to exempt travel not on government-maintained roads? There are gated communities in parts of Virginia where one could easily either not leave or where one could only leave to literally go "across the street" to a supermarket most of the time. If you draw a one-mile circle around Kingsmill, pretty soon you'll have everything from a large hospital (well, for the area) to a supermarket to a number of professional offices...which could mean that most of some folks' driving is entirely within the neighborhood. Same song, different chorus would be travel on farm roads (and there are probably some farmer-owned vehicles that never leave the property). I'm assuming that there would be some pressure for a rebate policy.

I don't see how that's necessarily any different than now. If said vehicles use gasoline, they're still paying the gasoline tax even if they're not driving on public roads.

For that matter, you could walk to a neighborhood gas station, fill up a gas can, bring it home and use it to fill your lawnmower. You've paid a tax for highways, yet never used a roadway vehicle at all.

 

[Anderson]

Here in Austin the new "By-Pass" Toll Roads that were built to help reduce the Parking Lot Traffic on IH35 charge Trucks much more than cars (believe its by the axle) so as a result the tolls aren't what they were expected to be and the State is having to subsidize the Foriegn Investors that own the Toll Roads! (which leaves almost Vacant 8 Lane Toll Roads and a congested 24/7 IH35 through the City of Austin!)FWIW, the NIMBYs that want the tracks that run through downtown moved outide of town there is a scheme to run the new Tracks down the Median of the Toll Roads!Wonder if the state will charge Amtrak and UP Tolls!

They are building 'HOT' (High-Occupancy/Toll) lanes on the Beltway and I-95 here in Northern VA. The cost to drive on them will vary based on several different factors - the number of occupants and the amount of congestion on the non-toll lanes being the primary ones. A driver will be required to 'rent' a transponder for the privilage of using the lanes. This is not sitting well with many locals partially because the lanes are being financed by 'foriegn investors.' There has already been talk about the unfairness of this practice, as well as concern that people will be reluctant to use the lanes because, with varying tolls, folks will not be certain what it will actually cost.

Nice to know that similar projects have been so successful elsewhere. ^_^

I thought I smelled boondoggle. :lol:

HOT lanes are, in general, not a bad idea (and I do like the idea of demand pricing)...but it sounds like NOVA is making things more complicated than they would otherwise need to be. To borrow an idea from Amtrak's pricing model, why not just have several publicly disclosed "buckets" and, when you enter, you get a ticket indicating the time of issue and what bucket is being used at that time? You could easily display "HOT Lanes on Bucket 4" (or even "HOT Lanes on Bucket 4/$X to I-495) on one of those "lane open/closed" signs, and even using a PA Turnpike-sized receipt you could list the amount that each bucket corresponded to.

 

[Anderson]

-Another worthwhile question: Do states intend to exempt travel not on government-maintained roads? There are gated communities in parts of Virginia where one could easily either not leave or where one could only leave to literally go "across the street" to a supermarket most of the time. If you draw a one-mile circle around Kingsmill, pretty soon you'll have everything from a large hospital (well, for the area) to a supermarket to a number of professional offices...which could mean that most of some folks' driving is entirely within the neighborhood. Same song, different chorus would be travel on farm roads (and there are probably some farmer-owned vehicles that never leave the property). I'm assuming that there would be some pressure for a rebate policy.

I don't see how that's necessarily any different than now. If said vehicles use gasoline, they're still paying the gasoline tax even if they're not driving on public roads.

For that matter, you could walk to a neighborhood gas station, fill up a gas can, bring it home and use it to fill your lawnmower. You've paid a tax for highways, yet never used a roadway vehicle at all.

Actually, what I described is roughly the case now, at least in Virginia.

Edit: To clarify, in your example, you would keep the receipt and claim exception 14 ("Used for a purpose other than in operating or propelling highway vehicles, watercraft or aircraft."...and yes, there are separate watercraft exceptions for commercial and recreational uses).

Davy: Just a follow-up on my last post, but I'm painfully aware of the gas tax situation here. It's been...interesting talking to some of the more sane folks in Richmond (who I won't name) about why certain things have been happening such as they have.

 

[saxman]

I don't like the idea of GPS tracking devices. The government doesn't need to know where I've been, and I can just imagine the infrastructure involved in actually keeping track of millions of vehicles. Nothing's wrong with just reporting the odometer reading.

As more and more vehicles are going hybrid and electric, we're going to have to do something. I don't think it's fair that electric aren't paying a dime in taxes, yet they still enjoy driving the roads. I'm just guessing, but I've heard within 5 or 10 years, half of vehicles on the road today, will be either hybrid or electric, and the gas tax situation will be worse.