WA headed for Road Usage Tax

[rjohnson4405]

Because this taxes the gas vehicles twice and punishes you for not using electric which is apparently a feature rather than a bug if I had to guess.

[Navin Johnson]

Carbon based = gas tax.

Electric = mileage.

What’s the hard part of doing it this way?

A lot of sellable data when you’re tracking where everybody goes

They would likely build into the law an easier way to raise their per mile fee, compared to what they have to do to raise the gas taxi

Kind of like electric cars, private companies sell petroleum based fuel, the government controls the electrical grid

Also, with the mileage fee, it’s much easier to differentiate and charge certain vehicles more or less, depending on if the dear leader approves them

[TheNewbie]

Enough people want to pay these high taxes because enough people vote for them. Just like enough people in many big cities want crime and mayhem because the continually vote for it.

There should only be sales taxes, and any governmental agency that cannot survive off that, should be eliminated.

[Jim Watson]

Easy to add the mileage tax and keep the gasoline tax. I can't think of a tax that has been reduced or repealed.

[HeavyDuty]

Good question. Probably never occurred to any of our legislative members.

The only problem I see with it is hybrids that use both. Maybe they just get a surcharge on their license for being switch hitters.

Nah. Hybrids are just high efficiency gasoline powered vehicles.

[Borderland]

Easy to add the mileage tax and keep the gasoline tax. I can't think of a tax that has been reduced or repealed.

That's probably what they will do. People will think they not getting screwed but we have to remember, this is CA north.

I hope this isn't too political. No names were used to protect the guilty.

[RoyGBiv]

Nah. Hybrids are just high efficiency gasoline powered vehicles.

Google "Plug in Hybrid"

[HeavyDuty]

Google "Plug in Hybrid"

Simple. Plug in of any kind = mileage tax, maybe at a reduced rate.

None of this needs to be rocket science.

[Borderland]

Google "Plug in Hybrid"

I didn't know those existed.

I lost all interest in cars about 20 years ago when they all started to look alike. Now they're just machines with no soul. The styling sucks and the manly 400 CI ICE is gone forever. I grabbed a ICE, old school, solid axel SUV while they still made those a few years ago. The trend around here is to rebuild 50's, 60's and 70's pickups. I see lots of those on the road. Neighbor has a nice 66 Chev Fleetside in the que for a total restoration. He works a lot of OT as a sheriff but it will be there when he gets the time.

[Borderland]

Simple. Plug in of any kind = mileage tax, maybe at a reduced rate.

None of this needs to be rocket science.

reduced rate

Is this going to be like the 2,652 pages of US tax code?

You might be able to navigate the waters but I sincerely doubt any of our legislators are up to the task. Most of them probably aren't capable of doing simple math unless they happened to be engineers, and engineers make lousy politicians. I used to work with them daily.