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Washington State - Pay Per Mile

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breser

AutoPilot Nostradamus
Aug 28, 2014
2,314
97
North Bend, WA
Saw this earlier this week:
Drew Mikkelsen on Twitter:

Followed up by this:
Drew Mikkelsen on Twitter:

Obviously this is absurd (we pay $100 a year for electric vehicles on registration to deal with road tax), but I wanted to point out that some people are pushing for pay per mile taxing and using EVs as the reason.

The TV piece pointed at us as well (along with more fuel efficient vehicles):
Washington pay-by-mile pilot program approval expected

And of course it didn't mention the $100 yearly fee we're already paying.
 
I don't want anything monitoring my miles and I don't want to mess with reporting. They should make it apply to all vehicles, not just EV's. That would put it into perspective.

Time to write more letters. Oregon has been working on a plan like this but I don't know if it went through yet.
 
I fear this is the wave of the future. And they won't do it by simple odometer readings during the annual safety inspection process. It will come in the form of GPS tracking technology, data mined to further erode the fragments of privacy that we have left.

Not to mention that this will result in gas guzzling trucks and SUV's paying the same road taxes as my EV.
 
Then we have the relevant issue for travelers to/from other states. Do they get a pass on paying that jurisdiction's road tax when they charge up while on a road trip? How about residents who live near the state line (Portland/Vancouver or Spokane/Couer D'Alene) and work in the neighboring state? This whole thing does not play out well.

A fair assessment of road tax will eventually be needed for us BEV drivers. It is regrettable that the politicians do not think things through carefully and equitably; they would rather have some one-size-fits-all approach and move on.

Don't hang me, but the most equitable and perhaps easiest approach would be to eliminate each state's road usage tax. Just have one larger federal tax that is allocated to the 50 states/DC based upon traffic counts of road miles driven. No GPS spying on our journeys. No attachments to our EVSE or to public chargers/Superchargers. Since all the money goes into the treasury, and the IRS is responsible for collecting these excise taxes, just add another line to our 1040s or K-1s where we report our annual mileage. When a car is sold or totaled, any true-up would be assessed before the paperwork is completed. Probably not a good idea, but it is a start.....
 
I agree cpa. Both the gas tax and a mileage tax would be very regressive, hurting those with low incomes much more than the trucks or those able to afford an expensive car. I'm all for a federal excise tax based on the value of the vehicle with some multiplier based on weight or some other factor that is directly correlated to wear on the road. If it is a Federal tax, then the problems of crossing borders is eliminated. I really doubt anything fair will come from either the Washington legislature or the current and coming congress, however we must continue to fight the good fight, we can never just acquiesce.
 
There should be a flat road use tax that everyone pays just for driving a car on public roads. Then a mileage and weight based formula with reductions for low income drivers could be taken into account. Just because a car is expensive doesn't mean it should pay more to use the roads. The sales tax already takes that into account and many states also base their yearly registration fee on the MSRP of the vehicle.
 
Yes a completely sticky wicket! The problem with anything other than a gas tax is that it adds more government overhead just to track it and account for it. A gas tax they collect from a few big companies who have to pay and involves very little overhead.

Don't really trust federal funds as too much horse trading goes on in congress. I.E. see the aviation tax fund that is never disbursed.

If the gas cars are more efficient then some standard have them pay extra for the license like they do for ev's.
 
There should be a flat road use tax that everyone pays just for driving a car on public roads. Then a mileage and weight based formula with reductions for low income drivers could be taken into account. Just because a car is expensive doesn't mean it should pay more to use the roads. The sales tax already takes that into account and many states also base their yearly registration fee on the MSRP of the vehicle.

I agree that lower-income people should not be penalized for having to drive longer distances to work or for shopping. For many individuals this would be a regressive tax--we don't need more of those. However, if we base "low income" on personal income tax return data, some other sort of compilation that could easily be manipulated or (horrors!) fraudulently devised, then everybody loses.
 
This will be interesting for sure if it actually happens. Several insurance companies offer a type of gadget that is basically the same thing that they're propsing. Unfortunately I've been told that because of the way Teslas systems are none of these devices CAN even be hooked into the car. Yes I'm sure we all know of work arounds that we may have done to our cars...but I doubt the state will step in and mess with the systems.

For or instance the Nissan leaf is eligible already for this device which can save a ton of $$ but not tesla. Ha.
 
I fear this is the wave of the future. And they won't do it by simple odometer readings during the annual safety inspection process. It will come in the form of GPS tracking technology, data mined to further erode the fragments of privacy that we have left.

Not to mention that this will result in gas guzzling trucks and SUV's paying the same road taxes as my EV.

We don't have to do inspections anymore now that we have no emissions.

- - - Updated - - -

There should be a flat road use tax that everyone pays just for driving a car on public roads. Then a mileage and weight based formula with reductions for low income drivers could be taken into account. Just because a car is expensive doesn't mean it should pay more to use the roads. The sales tax already takes that into account and many states also base their yearly registration fee on the MSRP of the vehicle.

Vehicle owners are not the only ones that benefit from roadways. Bike riders, grocery shoppers, and businesses benefit. I can't think of anyone that does not benefit from our roadways.
Maybe the new carbon tax that was proposed is a better answer.
 
Bring it on.

I think this all a tempest in a teapot. I am certain that road use tax rates will be set up to be proportional to the amount of damage a car does. I also doubt they will use GPS to track our vehicles and simply rely on odometer statements. If you lie, they will catch you when you sell the car. Also for out of state driving, my guess is that it would only matter to a tourism state and those tourists are generating lots of other tax revenue.

Will it be regressive? No. At least. no more so than gas tax. I believe they will first try to craft the tax such that the burden will be about the same for equivalent sized vehicles. Every time gas prices go up we hear the tales of hardship of the poverty stricken people that must drive their gas guzzlers hours each day to get to their minimum wage jobs. But then, I believe this is such a tiny percentage of Americans that it makes no sense to drive national or state policy based on it. Eventually their gas guzzler will die and they will step up to a cheaper to operate vehicle. Or they will move closer to work (or find work closer to home). In general, even with high prices, gasoline is still a small part of the cost of ownership - especially with older cars where maintenance becomes an even bigger factor.