On top of this, the additional price of fuel then further encourages consumers to turn to more fuel efficient modes of travel, which drops fuel based taxes even more and so on. Anyone wanna take any bets on the gas companies themselves pushing for the taxation model to transition away from being consumption based?
You apparently failed to read a single thing I wrote.
My point was the price of gas would stay the same because the oil companies can (and likely will with justification) adjust it without people getting up in arms about it because they are already used to paying really high gas prices in Cali, and this law would cause the delivery prices to jump, which gets passed onto the consumer. I never even remotely said that removing the tax wasn't part of the plan.
Yes, this exactly.OneOfOne_sl said:
Nor have they ever had to pay a per-mile tax on delivery. Guess who's paying that for the delivery of the gas and the ethanol oxygenating additive?Vaclav_sl said:
no doubt. A lot of people either think the government gets plenty of money to do it already (They do, but it always wants more.) or they violently oppose the idea of government tracking. I am a member of the latter category, and somewhat the former.
Cool. Then I'm sure that doubling or tripling the fuel tax overnight would go over much better with the voting populace. For reference:
There's also the fact that this isn't a tax on a commodity (ie., fuel). It is a tax on your own personal movements. That's kinda spooky.
I don't understand your point. Is anyone in this thread suggesting or even talking about the fuel tax in the U.S. doubling or tripling? The current tax on fuel in California is $.53/gallon, so if this tax goes to 1.5 cents per mile driven then anything under 35 MPG is a loss for the state compared to where it is currently.
Very little gas delivery is done via vehicle and right now they're paying gas tax for the same deliveries anyhow, and with the likely less than average efficiency on the trucks. So assuming "per mile" tax would be based on average efficiency they'd likely be paying LESS IN TAXES.
That wouldn't make it past summary judgment. The SCOTUS jurisprudence on that issue essentially states that as long as you aren't completely barred from interstate travel then a state's exercise of its police power to tax is constitutional. The tax at issue here would have to impinge upon someone's ability to travel between states, which it doesn't.
Saenz v. Roe, U.S.Cal.1999, 119 S.Ct. 1518, 526 U.S. 489, 143 L.Ed.2d 689.
