Virginia Transportation Funding Deal

This seems like a step backwards, but not as bad as the governors original plan. Changing from a fixed per gallon tax to a percentage tax increases the effects of price spikes. Shifting to sales tax is going to make the state raise sales tax faster if the price of oil goes down. That doesn't sound productive.

 

This is absolutely moronic. But what to expect form 'Governor Ultrasound'??
The fairest thing to do with regard to registration fees is to tax the people who actually use the service.
Virginia citizens who don't own or drive cars are going to wake up to a rude shock with the extra sales tax.

The fairest formula is MILES DRIVEN X VEHICLE WEIGHT.
Presumably, DMV already knows vehicle weight based on registration, but miles driven is trickier. It would have to be done with GPS; I know there are privacy issues, but people need to stop being hypocritical......not letting the state of Virginia have it doesn't make sense when you've already given it to Google and Apple.

Thus, under this formula, a Ford Excursion and a Prius V are both driven 12,000 miles, but the Excursion would pay more.
Conversely a Prius V driven 20,000 miles a year would be taxed higher than a Prius V driven 12,000 miles.
Finally, there could be some sort of discount for avoiding congested roads during peak traffic hours.

 

When we last lived in N. Virginia, the cars had an annual 'safety' inspection. Reading the odometer would be trivial.

Bob Wilson

 

Elect anti-science, religioius nuts who are on the payroll of large corporations and, voila, a tax on fuel efficient cars in a time of $14T oil wars, loss of US mfg base, global pollution disaster from burning oil and $300B per year oil trade deficit.

As for "who uses the service", oil companies and defense contractors are the biggest users of the government services that keep US 50% less energy efficient than Europe and the resulting spending of $14T on oil and military products to keep the oil flowing. Tax oil companies and defense contractors, the biggest users of the "service".

 

Mileage gets recorded when you have your emissions testing done in addition to the vehicle saftey inspection.

WV already has an internet sales tax that you are supposed to pay with your income taxes. Nobody I know had ever heard of it much like the EV tax credit.

Oh yeah now I remember why I left the DC, MD, VA area, to much like state sponsored slavery or indentured servitude with all the taxes and fees. Very little of my money went to Fairfax's billion dollar government center.

 

So, I suppose this tax season will not be in my favor? I thought Arlington was a green city, I hope I don't need to pay extra taxes.

 

True, and no privacy issues there, but what about if the odometer included many miles not driven in the state of Virginia? Like, say, a roadtrip to Florida? Also, I think having some sort of mechanism to know when/where people are driving is useful, as opposed to just the miles.....for example, every mile driven in heavily congested areas during peak hours could count as 'double miles'......since clearly this driving leads to congestion, which costs the state money.....and wouldn't be captured by an annual odometer read.

 

$100 extra a year to drive a Prius. they should tax the cars that omit the largest CO2 by weight and reward the Clean cars Prius and EV. Punish the good guys makes no sense.

The Prius tax may get taken out and just keep the sale stax increase once it gets negociated.

Indexing gas tax to inflation. Wow baked in increases. This is truely a sad day in America. Increases taxes is not the solution but lowering expenses is.

 

My Oregon may be next:
Oregon officials propose per-mile tax for gas sippers | Politics | KATU.com - Portland News, Sports, Traffic Weather and Breaking News - Portland, Oregon

 

Oh somebody please fight this.

Pester your Senators and tell them how ridiculous this $100 tax is. Just ask them what they'd say if somebody proposed a flat fee for all drivers. They'd call it unfair for the same reason you call the hybrid fee unfair.

Tell them that since they won't give you any credit for lowering pollution and increasing economic efficiency (by reducing the gasoline distribution overhead) and keeping more money in the state, you'll now do as much business as possible out-of-state and online.

 

Automatic indexing is the most sensible budgetary option. It avoids the annual/bi-annual games of political blackmail.

It seems to me that while alt-fuel tech is more expensive you could just allocate the remaining sales tax from $4000k of each new alt-fuel car to the transportation fund. That would buy time to consider, determine and implementate a fairer solution.

 

Change my bumper sticker to " Virginia is for Taxes"

 

Would it be possible to challenge the fee in court? It sounds discriminatory to me.