EV Tax Penalty

[Donald Stanfield]

100% agree a mileage based tax the fairest way (along with weight of vehicle).

Politicians are pushing “tax the rich” agenda where I suspect they will eventually add a rate ladder to EV taxes based on income.

Here’s a recent income tax example in MA where there is additional tax (4%) on top of the regular rate for income in excess of $1M. It’s even called the “Fair Share Amendment”.

https://massbudget.org/fairshare/

I'm so sick of this fair share bullshit. How is paying more a fair share, it's the opposite of fair.

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[ads75]

Now ya did it, ya got me started on PennDOT and the Turnpike Commission, lol. Talk about clueless bureacrats in Harrisburg supported by spineless politicians.

You may know some of these facts:

They steal from the Motor License Fund and Turpike Tolls to pay for the State Police.

"Over the past six years, $4.25 billion has been diverted from the Motor License Fund to repair roads and bridges, and used to fund Pennsylvania State Police, the state auditor general announced."

“Safety on public highways” is an allowable Motor License Fund expense, according to the state constitution. The fiscal year 2016-17 budget diverts about $802 million in Motor License Fund money to state police, about 67% of the agency's $1.2-billion budget. About $257 million comes from the general fund."

Incredible Turnpike rate increases while DECREASING expenses by getting rid of toll booth collector labor. They are expanding the entire road to 6 lanes wide, while toll revenue is dropping like a rock because of the increases. Trucks are not using the turnpike as much and instead driving longer routes on I-80, I-78, etc.

"In 2004, the cost to travel the turnpike from the Ohio border to the New Jersey line was just over $21. Today, the same trip costs $47 — for E-ZPass users. For other drivers, the cost is $95.30, paid via Toll-by-Plate — a machine that scans license plates and sends a bill."

"Fares have increased each of the past 13 years and will continue to rise until 2050. The most recent 5% increase will take effect in January. "

"While experts agree the constantly increasing tolls are worrisome, they are equally troubled by the amount of debt the Turnpike Commission has incurred over the past decade. Most of it stems from $450 million yearly payments to the state Department of Transportation, which started in 2007 under Act 44."

Just started playing around with the PA Turnpike Toll calculator. Its $50 to drive from Ohio to NJ, with EZ Pass, I found that a little shocking, although it is a long drive. My commute to work is $4.90 (Morgantown to Valley Forge), unless I take backroads, which adds 10-15 minutes to my commute, but bypasses the Turnpike. The last few years, I will avoid the Turnpike on my way home, and save that $4.90 . I would like to avoid the Turnpike on the way to work, but that involves getting up 10 minutes earlier, and getting up at 4am is early enough as is. But now, and I assume the next few years, the PA turnpike between Morgantown and Valley Forge is undergoing that expansion from 2 lanes each way to 3 lanes. Which during construction, is a PIA, more barriers, narrower lanes, etc. Guess I will be taking more backroads. Just not sure about getting up 10 minutes earlier, something psychological about getting up at 3:50am instead of 4:02am.

I have already been skipping the NJ/PA Turnpikes when visiting family in NJ. It takes about 2 hours 15 minutes to travel to them via NJ/PA Turnpikes, and $25. If I avoid the Turnpikes, it adds about 15 minutes to my drive, but I save that $25. I also don't have to worry about getting stuck on a Turnpike because of an accident.

 

[Brownbarron]

They are but not fairly, they need to remove the gas tax and add the same amount to all vehicle registrations. Alternatively device a charge per mile on registration for EVs so you pay per use like ICE. I’m all for paying for road maintenance but make it fair. That $400 is like driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee at 20 mpg 42k a year, that is 2.4 times the average in Oklahoma of 17.7k a year. Should be closer to $200.

Looks like they are trying to make local EVs pay for out of state registrations that use the roads but do not consume fuel.

You used the term Road Maintenance. I also see you are from Comifornia as am I and we both know there is little road maintenance done here in the golden state. Not sure how they are taxing the Rivian because I ordered it over 2 years ago and its still not being built. I do however know my Diesel buring pickup fetches the State over $1000.00 licence fee for the pleasure of driving these roads.

 

[Zoidz]

Just started playing around with the PA Turnpike Toll calculator. Its $50 to drive from Ohio to NJ, with EZ Pass, I found that a little shocking, although it is a long drive. My commute to work is $4.90 (Morgantown to Valley Forge), unless I take backroads, which adds 10-15 minutes to my commute, but bypasses the Turnpike. The last few years, I will avoid the Turnpike on my way home, and save that $4.90 . I would like to avoid the Turnpike on the way to work, but that involves getting up 10 minutes earlier, and getting up at 4am is early enough as is. But now, and I assume the next few years, the PA turnpike between Morgantown and Valley Forge is undergoing that expansion from 2 lanes each way to 3 lanes. Which during construction, is a PIA, more barriers, narrower lanes, etc. Guess I will be taking more backroads. Just not sure about getting up 10 minutes earlier, something psychological about getting up at 3:50am instead of 4:02am.

I have already been skipping the NJ/PA Turnpikes when visiting family in NJ. It takes about 2 hours 15 minutes to travel to them via NJ/PA Turnpikes, and $25. If I avoid the Turnpikes, it adds about 15 minutes to my drive, but I save that $25. I also don't have to worry about getting stuck on a Turnpike because of an accident.

I don't commute on the Pa Turnpike, but I do travel quite a bit and I avoid it when possible, such as using 422/100/30/78/81 when possible. I recall not that long ago (well, maybe 20 years ago, lol) it was around $3.90 from Reading to Fort Littleton where we go camping. It's now $20. It used to be heavy traffic every Friday at 6 PM. It's not that way anymore, sooo many people and trucks are finding alternate routes just like you mentioned.

And they are losing tons of money to people without EasyPass not paying tolls. You may know that without EasyPass, the toll is DOUBLED, so people just don't pay at all. There's simply no reason the toll should be double for "Toll by Plate". PA Turnpike Comission is so incompetent.

"According to the turnpike's toll calculator, traveling from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia costs $34.70 for drivers with E-ZPass. A driver paying using Toll By Plate will pay $70.80, which is more than double."

"The Pennsylvania Turnpike lost $104 million in unpaid tolls in the year ending May 31, 2020. The vast majority of unpaid tolls come from Turnpike users who do not use E-Z Pass, the transponders used in the all-electronic tolling system to which the Turnpike entirely converted in 2020."

 

[Yota2R1T]

I hope your magic eight ball is wrong about that dystopian future. If it comes to that we can all immigrate to what’s left of Canada.

Everyone on this forum is hereby welcome, in the near term dystopian future. We may be a formerly vast and forested land, but you'll get used to the charred smell of homes, cars, etc.

 

[kylealden]

Mileage based taxes have some pretty obvious drawbacks (like the feeling that uncle same is tracking you), but they are also regressive.

For what it's worth, I'm totally with you on this; the regressiveness of a use tax is my primary concern (especially as we're already in one of the most regressive tax regimes in the country).

My general (idealistic) philosophy here is as stated in my prior post:

Couple that with carbon and particulate emission taxes on all energy. Externalities need to be priced in across the board.

1. Price in externalities as close to the source as possible. EV use taxes will look a lot less regressive when the invisible subsidies around oil and roads suddenly reveal themselves.
2. For low earners and other at risk populations, direct stimulus is more effective than convoluted tax strategies that appear to be progressive by shifting the burden to an invisible distributed one.
3. What's really regressive is the fact that poor families who live by freeways and power plants are subsidizing low gas prices and cheap cars with their lung tissue and medical debt.

ICE cars should be more expensive than EVs because they are knowably and provably more harmful, both to the environment and to public health. These costs are currently borne invisibly by the entire tax base (and future generations); they should be priced in to the MSRP.

EVs should be more expensive than public transit, biking, etc.! They're better than the above, but only incrementally. And if electricity pricing follows the above principles, the picture will get less rosy in a lot of places.

The best options (transit! bikes!) should be free or close to free, and low earners should get breaks where those options aren't viable. But we need to get to a world where we're building bike lanes and enhancing transit instead of adding freeway lanes and subsidizing Hummer EVs.

Yes, I recognize that this is hopelessly naive, and my third point might as well be "everyone is entitled to nonstop orgasms" while I'm off fantasizing. Nevertheless.

 

[SeaGeo]

For what it's worth, I'm totally with you on this; the regressiveness of a use tax is my primary concern (especially as we're already in one of the most regressive tax regimes in the country).

My general (idealistic) philosophy here is as stated in my prior post:

1. Price in externalities as close to the source as possible. EV use taxes will look a lot less regressive when the invisible subsidies around oil and roads suddenly reveal themselves.
2. For low earners and other at risk populations, direct stimulus is more effective than convoluted tax strategies that appear to be progressive by shifting the burden to an invisible distributed one.
3. What's really regressive is the fact that poor families who live by freeways and power plants are subsidizing low gas prices and cheap cars with their lung tissue and medical debt.

ICE cars should be more expensive than EVs because they are knowably and provably more harmful, both to the environment and to public health. These costs are currently borne invisibly by the entire tax base (and future generations); they should be priced in to the MSRP.

EVs should be more expensive than public transit, biking, etc.! They're better than the above, but only incrementally. And if electricity pricing follows the above principles, the picture will get less rosy in a lot of places.

The best options (transit! bikes!) should be free or close to free, and low earners should get breaks where those options aren't viable. But we need to get to a world where we're building bike lanes and enhancing transit instead of adding freeway lanes and subsidizing Hummer EVs.

Yes, I recognize that this is hopelessly naive, and my third point might as well be "everyone is entitled to nonstop orgasms" while I'm off fantasizing. Nevertheless.

We're on the same page, I was just trying to point out some of the complications with trying to solve this problem for others mostly since at face value it's a simple problem of State's trying to get a dollar from everyone.

 

[Dark-Fx]

subsidizing Hummer EVs.

Lucky for us, the Hummer EV should never be available cheap enough to qualify for the tax credit (and unlucky for me, the ones sold before the tax credit change weren't eligible because GM was already phased out of the old program)

https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/08/2024-gmc-hummer-ev-pickup-pricing-revised/

 

[PappaBolt]

Sarcasm ahead:

It sounds like the only real solution for the environment and health of all citizens is to eliminate all transportation that emits carbon: at the vehicle, or at the electric plant, or in manufacturing, or in shipping.

Does this effectively eliminate all transportation? Even horses which require feed based on carbon consumption to grow it?

Everyone that wants to WFH and avoid human contact can thank me.

 

[TheMu]

I saw one that had horseplay; it was really wild when the driver used mustang mode!

I just realized the Blinkers/Blinders on the horse's eyes are the OG Lane Keep Assist!

 

[Dark-Fx]

Sarcasm ahead:

It sounds like the only real solution for the environment and health of all citizens is to eliminate all transportation that emits carbon: at the vehicle, or at the electric plant, or in manufacturing, or in shipping.

Does this effectively eliminate all transportation? Even horses which require feed based on carbon consumption to grow it?

Everyone that wants to WFH and avoid human contact can thank me.

The real solution is to address the overpopulation issue but I don't think anyone wants to.

 

[PappaBolt]

The real solution is to address the overpopulation issue but I don't think anyone wants to.

Seems like it’s being addressed

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/civilization-collapse-climate-change

 

[Zoidz]

Sarcasm ahead:

It sounds like the only real solution for the environment and health of all citizens is to eliminate all transportation that emits carbon: at the vehicle, or at the electric plant, or in manufacturing, or in shipping.

Does this effectively eliminate all transportation? Even horses which require feed based on carbon consumption to grow it?

Everyone that wants to WFH and avoid human contact can thank me.

If we go back to horses, the whole cycle will start all over again, cars replaced the evils of horses:

• A horse would dump between 20 and 50 pounds of manure a day on the streets along with a gallon of piss… if you add 500 horses per square mile, that is a lot of “waste”;
• In New York in 1900, the population of 100,000 horses produced 2.5 million pounds / 1200~ metric tons of horse manure per day, which all had to be swept up and disposed of (Burrows & Wallace, 2006).
• The tonnes of manure pounded and pulverized into dust attracted rodents and flies;
• The result was an ever-present layer of manure that clung to shoes, traveled in the wind and seeped into the water supply;
• One wild government estimate of the time estimated that 95% of all disease-carrying flies bred in horse dung;
• Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure (Davies, 2004).

 

[vista1984]

it sounds like:
- because we don't use plastic bags, we have to be charged $100 a year, since plastic company has less income, and government get less tax money.

good job

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