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February 17, 2005
Surprise - Governments Out For Money Too
I saw a very interesting piece at Coyote Blog today. Basically it points out the effect that taxes on certain things, such as cigarettes, that are meant to suppress “socially harmful” behaviors have on the government. Eventually the government comes to depend on the income from those taxes, so they either change the tax so that it no longer suppresses those behaviors, or just resist a reduction in those behaviors.
All of a sudden that 17-cent tax on BOTH plastic and paper bags in San Francisco makes more sense. On first glance, I thought, “why would they tax both, since they say plastic bags are the ones that are much more responsible for environmental harm?” Duh, it wasn’t because “paper was added so as not to discriminate,” which I thought was an incredibly lame excuse by the way. It’s because they want the money.
In the same vein, Vodka Pundit points out this CBS story that says
[Buying a fuel efficient hybrid] saves [Jayson Just] almost $300 a month in gas. It's great for Just but bad for the roads he's driving on, because he also pays a lot less in gasoline taxes which fund highway projects and road repairs. As more and more hybrids hit the road, cash-strapped states are warning of rough roads ahead.Officials in car-clogged California are so worried they may be considering a replacement for the gas tax altogether, replacing it with something called "tax by the mile."
…
"Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that," says engineer David Kim.Kim and fellow researcher David Porter at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one.
"So, if you drive 10 miles you will pay a certain fee which will be, let's say, one tenth of what someone pays if they drive 100 miles," says Kim.
The new tax would be charged each time you fill up. A computer inside the gas pump would communicate with your car's odometer to calculate how much you owe.
The system could also track how often you drive during rush hour and charge higher fees to discourage peak use. That's an idea that could break the bottleneck on California's freeways.
What a great idea! Let’s require every car to install a GPS device so that the government can pull in more tax revenues. I’m sure there won’t be any abuse at all of that technology. Why I’d love to be required to have a GPS unit in my car that the government has access to. And goodness knows, making the tax structure even more complicated than it is now is a wonderful idea too.
Oh, and I really loved the quote from "Jim Whitty, administrator of the [Oregon's] Road User Fee Task Force" in this piece.
However, Whitty noted one perk that would accompany the elimination of the gas tax. "The price of gas will come down," he said.
*Sigh* Seriously, is anyone stupid enough to buy that?
Update: Wizbang has a story on this. Ravenwood's Universe has a story about IBM installing car tracking equipment for the government.
Posted by illuminaria at February 17, 2005 07:11 PM