Posted on 12/12/2008 7:49:36 AM PST by BGHater
State panel endorses idea of levy tied to yearly miles logged on a car's odometer.
A special transportation committee gave final approval Wednesday to a report that proposes a new tax on the number of miles a car is driven each year, as well as other options for generating highway and transit money.
The vehicle miles tax would be calculated during the car's annual inspection and likely would supplement or replace the gas tax.
Legislators on the 21st Century Transportation Committee cautioned that a new tax is unlikely to advance during a budget crisis.
The special committee was formed to propose a menu of options for transportation funding, because the state's primary sources of money – the gas tax and a tax on car sales – are flat or declining.
The group also proposed toll booths on I-77 and I-95.
Committee member Chuck McGrady, however, said the committee skirted the question of overhauling how the Department of Transportation operates after years of complaints about turf battles, political patronage and dysfunctional divisions.
“We haven't gone far enough,” said McGrady, a Henderson County commissioner.
Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy, another committee member, cast the lone no vote on the final version of the recommendations, saying the vehicle miles tax unfairly penalized rural residents with long commutes and no public transportation.
Committee chairman Brad Wilson, chief operating officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, said the report could gather dust on a shelf unless individuals and communities support the recommendations. He acknowledged that raising new taxes is unpopular but said that a failing transportation system will make the state less attractive to new employers.
Steve Jackson, an analyst who focuses on transportation issues for the North Carolina Justice Center's Budget & Tax Center, criticized the report as lacking vision.
“The report offers no consistent vision for how to move forward,” he said in a news release. “… The policy solutions suggested are more 1955 than 2055.”
Disconnect the speedo cable 11 months out of the year ...
anyone stupid enough to vote for obamao
would be stupid enough to buy this.
This is SOOO stupid. As if the odometer can’t be hacked.
Pol 2: Fear not; we'll simply pass a different tax scheme and snare them.
Pol 1: But the selling point to support the car's higher price was how much money it would save the owner over time.
Pol 2: screw 'em!
“Disconnect the speedo cable 11 months out of the year ...”
They don’t use speedometer cables anymore. You have to hack the computer.
Oh believe you me, North Carolina, and its gestapo Highway Patrol can get that taken care of real quick. Roadblocks, as in License checks. Instead of one, the will have two, a quarter a mile from each other.
People are just not giving their fair share to the state, who is bound and determined to find new creative ways of prying the cash out of its populace.
Yea,and get this. If you live near the boarder and say you drive to Columbia SC to work every day , you’ll be taxed as if you did all that driving in NC.
“They don’t use speedometer cables anymore. You have to hack the computer.”
LOL ... on my car, I still have a cable. On the others, it should be that hard to hack into the program.
Can we start a movement for tax simplification? This seems too complicated a way to tax people. Also, do you really think that they will levy the mileage tax but do away with the gas tax? I think it will be just another tax, in addition to the gas tax.
The existing gas taxes we all pay work well, because we all pay them roughly based on how much we drive. The more gas we buy, the more we pay. It seems fair enough, doesn’t it, even though taxes are too high as it is.
Auto drivers, welcome to the wonderful world of the ‘Transportation Industry’ of which I am a disgruntled member.
You won’t be able count the ways the have found to tax.
We’ve been hammered for decades in the name of ‘infrastructue’ to find the only 11% has been spent for it’s intended use.
BOHICA!
Naw, it would be in addition to it.
While they bitch and demonize SUV's, the truth is that there are too many econo cars driving further on the same gallon of gas. Add the economic slump into the mix and their (the state) revenues do fall. They believe a mileage tax is more fair and easier to get more revenue. I say this falls into the same category as red light cameras. It's not about being fair, it's about milking more cash from the people.
What odometer? Sorry Mr Tax Collector it broke.
They’ll use your W-2 to determine the distance between your home and your job and give you an “estimated” tax bill you can challenge at great expense to yourself. If your mileage for 365 days of travel falls short, you lose your lisence. Never mind that no one works 365 days a year. This is a tax on going to work they’re talking about. Of course getting Laid Off is no excuse. They’ll impute mileage as if you had a job and put your face next to the Dead Beat Dad sign on the bus you’ll be riding.
And then they’ll say “Huh, what us?” when their economy tanks.
“They’ll use your W-2 to determine the distance between your home and your job and give you an “estimated” tax bill you can challenge at great expense to yourself.”
How would they know your not carpooling or working from home?
“And you always wondered why we have annual auto inspections...”
They ended annual auto inspections in GA a long time ago. The people that wanted to keep the annual inspections warned of increased traffic accidents and insurance rates skyrocketing. You know what actually happened?
Nothing. Not a darned thing. Accidents didn’t go up and neither did insurance rates.
Annual inspections are totally useless. The only people that benfited from them were the repair shops.
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