Featured Gov. Greg Abbott signs electric vehicle fee into law

"The fee is intended to ensure that electric vehicle owners pay their fare share toward highway costs, which are usually covered by a 20 cent-per-gallon gas tax paid by owners of gas-fueled and hybrid vehicles."

 

how can it be fair if not based on miles driven?

 

i don't see anything about excise tax there

 

I've been in favor of a miles/weight/class driven registration/tax in all States my entire adult life....Federal, State and Local.

 

i wonder why pols don't like the idea, pac money?

 

nevermind, mrs. b said she sends our accountant the excise taxes, so they must be deductible, i never knew.

 

The schedule also has a entry for any other taxes. The only limit that appears to be in place on what taxes can't be deducted is in you can't deduct state income and state sales tax together; it's one or the other.

I've wondered if those in no income tax states agreeing to limits to SALT deductions were aware they can deduction the sales tax they pay?

 

The annual renewal tax is equivalent to 1000 gallons of state fuel tax. So it is presumed that the average EV will be displacing 1000 gallons of taxable fuel per year.

With new passenger vehicles averaging over 25 mpg, and non-truck cars averaging 31-32 mpg, that means they are being taxed as of they are being driving 25k - 32k miles per year. And double that in their first year.

No, this isn't just a fuel tax replacement. Is it an anti-EV move.

 

It's not really anti ev it is anti Tesla. The dealership lobby which is strong is doing this to hurt Tesla sales in the state. Really many other states tax cars at much higher rates. Given the Federal government tax credit I don't see this as discouraging EVs, but an attempt by the dealer lobby to hurt tesla. I don't like it, but we have inexpensive renewable electricity in the state and relatively low taxes other than property.

The state portion of my registration fee is $50.75, making the new fee $149.25 less if the rest of the state portion goes up. State plus federal is $0.383 - so 390 gallons or equivalent taxes and fees of a 38 mpg vehicle going 15,000 miles a year. If you just consider the state it is 747 gallons or the state fees of a 20 mpg vehicle going 15,000/year.

Its not enough to stop anyone from buying a plug-in in texas.

 

TX sounds tame to me...
Virginia went with pseudo miles driven tax, based on vehicle MPG, and any vehicle over 25 MPG is considered to be cheating the state out of fuel taxes. With inflation I am paying $50-60 extra yearly for a 40 MPG RAV4HV. Prii HEV must be approaching $100/yr now or will be a few years. EV's are hit fairly mildly maybe $200.

 

Dot.gov giveth....
Dot.gov taketh away.
Frankly, I'm agnostic on the issue except for the fact that there should be a fair mechanism for BEVs to 'pay their fair share.' but our 52 laboratories of democracy have different ways of doing stuff locally.

My guess is that there are lots of California ex-pats that tunneled out from behind the tinsel curtain because of things like: No income tax, relatively low sales taxes, and moderate to low real estate taxes.
They DO have relatively high property taxes.

I don't live there, so it's a 'nothingburger' for me personally.

 

How about increasing the tax on tires installed on EVs since, per mile driven, they pollute more than equivalent ICE installed tires (weight, acceleration).

And double if the tires are in several brands imported from China since they pollute measurably more.

I never considered the tires as a source of pollution but some of the chemicals used in their production eventually find their way into our streams and other water sources.

It isn't just the obvious tire dust on the rear of your car.

 

We covered that up-thread.

Taxing the energy (electricity, gasoline) has worked because it is consumed directly for transportation. But taxing electricity for an EV is difficult because of the cost of separately measuring car charging apart from all other uses.

But tires are safety equipment. If you don't have safe tires on a given car, there's an increased chance it will contribute to a wreck.

If you cause the cost of safety devices to rise, the buying public will have an incentive to take more risks.

Within that there is a problem of granularity: if you have to pay your share of this tax every four or five years (tire lifetime) then it won't be a small amount, which compounds the safety issue. If tires regularly wore out every two weeks, this would be a smaller problem.

Heck, some people would just trade in the car instead of putting new tires on. Think about leases.

 

Microplastics from EV tires? Outrage, we already banned hefty bags for lawn waste here due to perceived microplastic pollution.

 

In theory, it COULD be fair - if the money raised - in addition to road repair/expansion was also used to subsidize infrastructure/charging growth. That might seem tolerable to drivers that plug in.

.

 

PS: I probably do half my miles in Maryland, so I am not really "cheating" Virginia out of that much tax, in other words, I am paying extra fuel taxes (compared to a 25 MPG car) as follows:

I have to pay:
Virginia fuel tax at pump + Maryland fuel taxes at pump + Virginia extra penalty for a 40 MPG car

 

And build gas pumps With the gas tax !

 

I'd settle for capping off old wells.