Mileage tax to add to rising gas prices?

March 31, 2011 04:08


[CBO] released a report — commissioned by a Senate Democrat — on whether a “vehicle mileage tax” would be either practical or practicable. A vehicle mileage tax (or VMT) would require people to report on the mileage they drive in their family or business vehicles.

By Andrew Langer at The Daily Caller

EXCERPTS:

The size of the tax would be based on that mileage.

This is not a new idea — Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and others have proposed this before — but in the past the idea was shot down as too expensive or unworkable. This time, though, the CBO concluded that a VMT would be a “practical option for revenue enhancement” (read: an effective way to tax people).

What makes it efficient is that it effectively transfers the burden of paying for the highest-cost roads (urban roads) to America’s rural residents. While there is merit in having suburbanites pay for urban roads, cities and states have found ways to do this — generally through tolls and gas taxes.

But here we have a tax that will be levied on two classes of drivers: long-distance drivers and those with heavier vehicles, two classes that are increasingly rare in urban areas.

FULL ARTICLE



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