Posted on 06/12/2007 11:54:15 AM PDT by LibWhacker
In the article above:
...revenue investigators were checking fuel tanks of diesel RVs for illegal fuel.
The investigators quickly spotted Teixeira's passing bumper sticker: "Powered by 100% vegetable oil."
I have a question - does burning 100% vegetable oil necessarily mean that he hadn’t purchased the oil from a licensed fuel seller? I am not sure that would constitute probable cause.
We're rapidly approaching that point, though they'll make your bicycle have a GPS transponder and tax you per mile. It will be up to you to prove (if you can) what you used on-road versus off-road (and bike trails will be considered on-road use).
This is not outrageous at all. In fact, this makes perfect sense.
Motor fuels are taxed in order to pay for the cost of roads. By taxing fuels, the state is in effect taxing the use of the road. This is a very good and non-distorting tax. The people who use the roads pay for the roads.
If you brew your own fuel and avoid the tax, you are using the roads without paying for the roads. Instead, your portion of the costs are shifted to other users. Your road use is, in effect, subsidized by everybody else who buys conventional fuel.
I am against taxes in general. I want them to be as small and non-distorting as possible. But some taxes make more sense than others. The motor fuel tax is a sensible tax, because it offsets the societal cost of the consumption of the motor fuels. There is no reason to subsidize somebody who chooses to use unconventional fuels.
Suppose you are using a pushbike on the road. You arent paying for its upkeep either, because you aren’t using fuels. Should you be taxed?
Yes, you should.
That said, structuring the tax would be a practical problem, since mere possession of a bicycle is not related to actual road use. For instance, I have a bicycle in my garage that has not been on a road in years, and is costing the state nothing.
So perhaps a different method of taxation for road use needs to be figured out. After all, mere possession of a car doesnt neccesarily mean that you are using public roads.
That's why taxation of motor fuels is appropriate. The amount of fuel burned is a pretty good proxy for amount of road usage.
It would seem to me that since the state taxes fuel to be sold by gasoline retailers, they would have no legal recourse to levy taxes on fuel you make yourself. The law needs to be checked. Also, did this man not pay local and state sales tax on the cooking oil he purchased? Just some thoughts here.
How would they be able to discern the difference between diesel fuel produced from cooking oil, and diesel fuel produced from crude oil?
It is, but not neccesarily of PUBLIC roads. Private roads are not being maintained by the state, therefore, why should vehicle owners who dont use them pay a tax for their upkeep?
No tax is perfect, of course. There will always be some people who pay too little or too much. For instance, I pay a motor fuel tax on the gasoline I put into my lawnmower. You just have to get as close as possible.
If a vehicle is dedicated to non-public road use, the owner can save about 30 cents a gallon by buying non-motor fuel for that vehicle. But he will be in violation every time he ventures onto a public road.
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