"Green" vehicles hurt government revenue.

Hi massparanoia--

In before anyone advocates raising gas taxes even further on cash-strapped British worker's wallets

Britain, like many other Western countries (Germany, Japan, the US) have far larger long-term deficit issues and 13 billion pounds in lost road taxes will be drop a in the bucket compared to the cost of their NHS and welfare/entitlement spending as the population ages. Arguably, the US/UK are far better situated to deal with these problems than other nations since population is still rising in both countries due to immigration but I really believe road taxes will be the least of their worries.

 

Isn't it odd that when you purchase a car, (and every year after that) your license plates cost more because of the 'Hybrid tax', yet no one funds a study claiming Hybrid owners pay too much in taxes?

 

Possibly not.

Fuel duty is £2.19 per US gallon.
The current Brent Crude price is £1.50 per gallon.

In other words, the tax revenue lost by saving a gallon will be more than the balance of payments saved. (The UK is a net importer).

To make the change comfortable, there would need to be other gains from improved economic competitiveness, reduced road maintenance from decreased vehicle weight, lower health costs from decreased pollution or lower military expenditure from decreased dependency.

 

I'm rather surprised that there hasn't been a study in the U.S. blasting "green" cars for taking money from the government through partial avoidance of gasoline tax.

Or was there one that I missed?

 

Germany Deficit 1% of GDP in 2011
US Deficit 10% of GDP in 2011.

Germany Debt/GDP 82%
US Debt/GDP 102%

Germany Current Account Balance +$149B
US Current Account Balance -$599B

At this point, especially for US, the number of hybrid, hydrogen, electric vehicles is so small that the effect is equally small. More importantly the costs for US of $500B oil trade deficit (the current account number above) and the $500B a year in military costs for oil wars far outweigh the miniscule revenue lost to gasoline taxes.

US should be raising gasoline taxes to INCREASE the rebates on high mileage vehicles to reduce the $1T cost of US oil use due to energy inefficiency.

 

There's this.
Oregon's electric car owners shocked by proposed bill that would tax their cars | OregonLive.com

 

And it's not like they knew this was going to happen. Fuel economy standards have improved in the last 10 years, electric vehicles are encouraged as are hybrid vehicles - ok not as beneficial as in California but much more beneficial than most of Europe.

BBC News - Compelling case for UK road charging, IFS study says

In addition to fuel duty (about 70% cost of petrol) we also have an annual rad tax payment for each car. This is based on the fuel economy standards (CO2 g/km) with cars like the Prius payment £0 per year and the highest rated cars like a Range Rover paying £500 per year. New cars have a similar rating with more falling into the £0 for the first year but less efficient cars falling into a higher one off rate of £1000 or so.

http://www.roadtaxprices.co.uk/Road_Tax_Bands.htm

Does all this money pay for the roads? No. It is offset and used on the free health care etc, including the bloated public sector employees.

 

Hi ProxmalSuns--

This is because Obama's $787+ billion stimulus package passed in 2009 cost more than the entire War in Iraq to that date. It's because of the Bernanke-Paulson $700+ billion TARP which at the stroke of a pen assigned more to the big banks/big labor than had been spent on the wars to date. Wars are expensive, sure, but we blow it way out of the water with welfare (both corporate and personal) as well as ridiculous amounts of entitlement spending

I guess you didn't see the first thing I posted in this thread.

To get back to topic, I haven't met a tax that went down on its' own accord. Before you know it, the Brits will come up with some way of taxing fuel to raise x amount of pounds per year, rather than taxing fuel at x number of pounds per liter and trying to guess how much money will be raised.

Before you know it, it'll cost a million quid to fill up the 1.3 golf diesel.

 

Well, DoD's 2012 budget is $707.5 billion. That, of course, doesn't include Veteran's Affairs or veterans' pensions because including those in the budget would be honest. Those add another $124.6 billion.

Given the cost of the anti-communist action, $500 billion per year for oil wars is just silly.

But the size of the budget, especially veteran costs, is really worth remarking on, since military action is largely bureaucracy with guns.

 

I think that crazy $500B just should be ignored. The person posting it seems clueless.

I don't have a real number though, many of the good analysis say $60B-$90B not including costs of war. Ron Paul has a good line about understanding that we need to protect our oil, but how did our oil get in so many foreign countries, when he talks about just not spending this huge amount of cash and lives defending something that is not ours to begin with. I mean most of the 911 hijackers were saudi, and they hate us, don't you think they would still take our money if we didn't "defend" saudi arabia.

Here is one of the enviro- resonable estimates
The True Cost of Oil: What are the Military Costs of Securing “our” Oil?

You can look at spending here
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/usa-defense-budget-idUSL1E8GI9L420120518

Simply phasing out central command created in the 32 years ago to defend "our" oil, gets those cuts. Its a failed policy that has cost the country trillions of dollars since it was created, it has lasted too long. Only a handfull in congress even want to even looking at phasing out failed policies. Then you have to asked after over 50 years why we have so many troops in S. Korea and Germany.

 

Among the more rational posters of the ideological spectrum, most agree that reducing military spending is needed. We also agree that reducing subsidies is needed. We also agree that roads need to be paid for and should be done fairly. Unfortunately, when extreme positions are advocated, it really does not help the interchange of ideas and points of view. Now back to topic.

I cannot see how green vehicles can hurt the government unless the government revenue approach was severely defective to begin with.

 

A Bad economy hurts the government revenues even more. Let's have them fix that.

 

US miltiary spending is $1.3T per year and has been over last 12 years. That and Bush's Wall St. casino operation are why US has the Great Recession and needed the stimulus which was too small and too many tax cuts and ran out of steam.

As for the $2T in Wall St bail outs, you'd need to talk to Bush and Treasury Sec. Paulson, CEO of...wait for it...Goldman Sachs who engineered the Wall St bailout after engineering the Great Recession and hitting the ripcords on their golden parachutes.

We need the green vehicles to cut the $1.3T per year in military costs that have left us with $14T in debt, $500B a year in oil trade deficit tax because we wasted $14T on tanks instead of developing hybrid cars and bullet trains.

So more gasoline taxes to give big tax credits to green vehicles so they become the majority on the road and fix US problems.

 

No. You don't.

US $1.3T military budget for 2012.

Budget breakdown for 2012 Defense-related expenditure 2012

Budget request & Mandatory spending Calculation DOD spending $707.5 billion Base budget + "Overseas Contingency Operations"

FBI counter-terrorism $2.7 billion At least one-third FBI budget.

International Affairs $5.6–$63.0 billion At minimum, foreign arms sales. (Example. Israel and Egypt $3.2B military aid)

Energy Department, defense-related $21.8 billion

Veterans Affairs $70.0 billion

Homeland Security $46.9 billion

NASA, satellites $3.5–$8.7 billion Between 20% and 50% of NASA's total budget

Veterans pensions $54.6 billion

Other defense-related mandatory spending $8.2 billion

Interest on debt incurred in past wars $109.1–$431.5 billion Between 23% and 91% of total interest

Total Spending $1.030–$1.415 trillion

Since the entire $14T debt of the US can be traced to the oil war build up and the 20 years of continuous oil wars. Social Security and Medicare taxes running net surpluses over same period to date playing no part in deficit or debt, the 91% figure for interest on debt with the $1.414T yearly military budgets is accurate.

Consider Russia's direct defense budget is $90B vs. US $707. China's $150B vs US $707.

There is no threat of Russian or Chinese invasion of US.

But the oil wars, ah...the oil wars...which gets back to green cars that eliminate the need for oil wars, eliminate the need for $500B of direct US military budget. No worries about Russian or Chinese invasion if US spends $200B matching Russia and China combined and stops the oil wars to protect US energy inefficiency.

So upping tax breaks for green vehicles and paying for it with gasoline taxes is a great way to help fix the problem. The cause of the problem pays for the solution.

 

over ten years later, there's still no internet tax because the government has promoted it. why not the same for green alternatives?

 

Please just stop your stupidity. I am ignoring you since you think somehow what. Using the oil per capita means we are gong to cut off veterans! They served our country we do not just throw them away. Homeland security? Why in the world would that go away? Do you think there is no terrorism in europe? Do you think the tsa and other things magically go away?

European oil levels mean you cut off pensions from veterans that fought in vietnam and korea?

Great default on the debt.

now you think huge gas taxes are gong to change history, and your version of it. Finally no your version of what is in the budget is not accurate at all. Just calling it military doesn't make it so. Then you go further. Do you think the nuclear weapons are part of the carter doctrine of war for oil? Or do you think the troops in germany and korea? Of course you do, because everything is.

Just stop the stupid repeating of the same bad numbers and same bad ideas.

The military can be cut with or without a drop in oil use. Iraq was because of the carter doctrine. It did not really get the United States one drop more of oil.

Finally this is about road taxes. Which we agree that EVs should not be taxed for now. Its much easier to simply raise fuel taxes to pay for these. EVs make such a small percentage. In the future that may change.

 

It's hard since, as you see above, people stupidly ignore the published US budget noting US military spending at $1.4T per year. People just ignore the facts.

And then make wacky non-sequitors to escape the fact that veterans pensions are part and parcel of military spending. The kind of magical thinking that you can employ 1 million in the military and then ignore the health care and pensions costs that creates later. A direct military cost that needs to be calculated.

Just like the cost of using oil, the fact that at least 50% of US military spending ($500B per the US Budget $1.4T itemized military costs above) and the $500B per year oil trade deficit tax and whatever monetary number one wants to put on air, water and climate pollution. How much was the destroyed Gulf of Mexico worth? How much would it cost to restore it, if we even could?

Gasoline vehicles cost US $1T a year at least.

So taxing non-oil using cars is crazy. We should be raising gasoline taxes not only to cut the oil trade deficit, not only to pay for the $14T in oil war debt but also to pay for increasing the non-oil using vehicles on the road. Europe does this and has been very successful in increasing it's energy efficiency to levels 50% greater than that of US. If you were as energy efficient as Europe, we could eliminate the $500B year in oil war military costs and $500B per year oil trade deficit taxes.

 

This is sound like San Jose, CA
San Jose water district.
Thank you for your water conservation.
Since people used less water, income for water district are less.
They are trying increase the rate by 40% or more.