California trying GPS-tracking mileage tax for 2016

I'd go back and analyze your post to show how wrong you are, but that would be like reaching into a toilet and taking apart a piece of shit to see what it's made of. Shit. Duh.

I would be ok with this as long as it replaced per-gallon gas taxes and was not in addition to them. Gas taxes per gallon are already ridiculous in some states:



Whenever politicians bitch about gas prices, remember that they can control a significant chunk of the price by lowering these taxes.

Gadrel_sl said:

Finally, people lose their right to bear arms when they move to states such as New York or California, whose gun regulation regimes are de facto bans upon the private ownership of firearms.

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Oh shut the fuck up teatard. I'm in Caly and off the top of my head 1/3 of the people I know legally own guns.

Does this also apply to electric vehicles and hybrids? Do they get a break?

It seems like the costs hardly justify the intrusion. A penny per mile comes comes to $1,000 for 100,000 miles. Average driver drives 15,000 miles a year, so $150 a year. You're telling me it legitimate to install a tracking device in all cars and track their locations for a $150 a year tax? Are they really going to net THAT much more money switching over to this system to compensate for this "energy efficient vehicles reducing tax generation" bullshit? Maybe if they plan to do it for electric cars it will be worthwhile in a few decades, but not now. Even if everyone is driving electric cars, getting an additional ~$150 a year isn't worth the intrusion.

Installing the GPS in a car will probably cost at least $50 bucks, I guess the consumer is going to eat that on new cars too?

I guess truck drives who do 100,000 in a year will matter under this new system, has the fuel economy on diesel engines really gotten that much better in the last decade or so?

What stops you from just disabling the GPS device or jamming the signal? They would still have to compare the GPS log to make sure it matches up with the odometer, right?

Overall, this seems so inefficient it MUST have an ulterior motive

dak_sl said:

Overall, this seems so inefficient it MUST have an ulterior motive

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Given all of the ways there are to account for lost gas tax revenue how are we to think any different? It's a plan to track everyone in every vehicle while charging the citizens for the privilege.

lendarios_sl said:

Sure mr. lawyer.
You do know you are going against precedent set on the supreme court on a case dealing with the same issue, right?

Spoiler

United States v. Jones, 132 S. Ct. 945, 565 U.S. ___ (2012), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.

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My previous posts aimed in your direction had nothing to do with whether the GPS tracking for tax purposes violated the Fourth Amendment. Instead, I was debunking your idiotic, broad assertions regarding "inalienable" rights and their supposed inability to be "contracted" away, whatever that means.

Tuco_sl said:

Gadrel, does this case not condemn California's ability to track a vehicle's movements?

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Not really. Jones is a criminal case about the exclusion of GPS evidence collected without a warrant during a criminal investigation. Any possible case regarding this taxation scheme, a function of the police power of a state to levy taxes and regulate driving, would be distinguishable.

After a brief survey of Supreme Court precedent mileage based taxes have generally been upheld, as long as they don't discriminate against out of state drivers. So, a mileage based tax evenly applied among all Californians wouldn't violate the commerce clause.

The issue is whether GPS tracking of the vehicle would constitute a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The interests guaranteed by that Amendment are not absolute, as seen by the exceptions to it, and often in Fourth Amendment cases the court uses a "balancing test" of the individual's interest versus the state or government's interest. See, e.g., Terry v. Ohio, which stated that a search or seizure must be reasonable, and that "there is 'no ready test for determining reasonableness other than by balancing the need to search (or seize) against the invasion which the search (or seizure) entails." 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1879, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968)quotingCamara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 534-535, 536-537, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1735, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967).

Generally, this balancing test is weighted heavily in favor of a criminal defendant, but less so in favor of a taxpayer. This is why, for example, Fourth Amendment challenges to the self-reporting requirements of the federal income tax have been repeatedly struck down. See, e.g., Couch v. United States, which held that a taxpayer has no expectation of privacy, or Fourth Amendment protection regarding, self-reported personal or business income tax records. 409 U.S. 322, 336, 93 S. Ct. 611, 619, 34 L. Ed. 2d 548 (1973).

This issue is further complicated by the fact that driving is not a right, but a privilege, which may over time become an entitlement protected by the Fourteenth Amendment's due process requirements. Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 91 S. Ct. 1586, 1587, 29 L. Ed. 2d 90 (1971) (holding that a driver's license may not be revoked without providing the licensee a forum to contest revocation).

California's proposed GPS taxation system appears to be broadly applied. I.e., every motorist would be required to install the system and pay the tax. Thus, the taxation at issue here would not impact a "suspect class" or "semi-suspect class," Supreme Court code words for race or gender based regulations. The question is whether it would impact a fundamental right. If not, the tax would be subject to mere rational basis review, and California would only have to prove that the regulation is rationally related to the advancement of a legitimate government interest. That's an easy test to satisfy here: California has a legitimate government interest in taxing miles driven to improve roads and a GPS tracking system is a rational way of calculating that.

So, the question here is: Does a broadly applied system of using GPS tracking to measure every car's mileage driven impinge upon a citizen's right to privacy? If so, does California's need to collect taxes and regulate driving outweigh the citizen's interest in privacy? There are no cases that I can find which are on point or directly answer these questions.

I would argue, however, that a GPS measurement of a vehicle's miles driven is a pretty minor invasion of an individual's privacy when compared to the compelling government interest of collecting taxes and repairing roads. California can probably minimize the invasion by not storing records ofwherea vehicle drove, and instead only storing calculations ofhow muchthe vehicle drove, and not allowing the records to be used in criminal investigations.

Yes, I'm sure everyone will be told the devices only track distance. And then we'll find out that's not the case.

Because that's pretty much how it's been going with all of this shit for years now.

lendarios_sl said:

The question you can ask is. "Is there are another ways for the government to collect tax money that do not involve the minor violation, a granted violation on your part"? The answer is yes, there is plenty of ways for the government to collect the tax, for what ever it wants, let it be road maintenance, or health care, without doing a violation of the 4th amendment.
Also as a side note, good luck passing that "pretty minor violation" pass Scalia. The first he will said, or anyone will say is, how is the recording of everyplace you have visited and time of visit, "a minor violation"?

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Let me phrase this in a manner you will understand: Has anyone really been far as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

He mad. The thing most of you guys don't know, is that Caly requires your car to pass a smog test every 2 years. If you pass (and unless you're driving a heap, everyone does) that info is sent to the DMV right then and there while you wait. $70 later you're back on the road. They could EASILY roll an odometer check into the smog check and boom, issue solved. You'll still have a few vehicles that get past this - older cars that don't require smog checks, and out of state drivers - but the former you just issue a fee at registration time, and the latter you'd have issues with even if they went the GPS route. I don't see how they won't go this route UNLESS they are trying to get our driving info as well.

You really realise how much gas tax is when they sell it at the next pump with no tax like off-raod diesel.