Posted on 10/02/2021 9:09:06 AM PDT by EBH
(AP) – CLAIM: President Joe Biden has called for a “driving tax” that is estimated to be 8 cents per mile.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The administration has not proposed that tax. A provision in Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill before Congress would establish a national study to assess how such a tax could be implemented. It would not actually enact that tax, nor it does not outline a rate of 8 cents per mile.
THE FACTS: As members of Congress mull a bipartisan, $1 trillion infrastructure bill that was approved by the Senate in August, social media users are misrepresenting one aspect of the massive legislation.
An image repeatedly shared on Facebook shows a screenshot of a Newsmax report on “Biden tax increases” that refers to a “driving tax.” The screenshot shows bullets saying “per-mile user fee,” “estimated to be 8 cents per mile,” and “amounts vary depending on vehicles.”
Text above the screenshot adds the: “Just to put this in perspective, if you drive 26,000 miles X 0.08 per mile = $2,080.00. [now get mad].”
But the Biden administration has not proposed such a mileage tax, as the image falsely suggests.
What has been proposed is a pilot program that would study the mechanics of such a tax, said Andy Winkler, director of infrastructure projects at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
That program — a “National motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot” — is included in the infrastructure package still before Congress.
“It is not a tax, it is not on everybody and it is voluntary,” Winkler said.
The idea, he said, is that volunteers with passenger and commercial vehicles across the country would participate in the program that would provide insights into how such a per-mile fee could be collected. Such a tax has been weighed as a potential replacement for the gas tax, he said.
Likewise, Ulrik Boesen, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, said in an email the “purpose of this program is to study [vehicle miles traveled] taxes to understand how they could work.”
The proposal for the pilot program also does not include an “8 cents per mile” rate, or any rate for that matter, Boesen said.
It’s unclear why that specific rate was referenced. An inquiry to Newsmax about its report was not immediately returned.
Boesen noted that a proposal floated in Pennsylvania suggests using a tax of 8.1 cents for each mile traveled, among other changes, and phasing out the state’s gas tax.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Seriously, if this isn't being "proposed" then why do they need the money to study it?
Do they really think the public is stupid? 6 months from now we'll see this new tax and the lie will fall apart.
They are engaged in the first steps of enacting just such a tAsk
Does anyone remember, post 9/11, that the Dept of Homeland Security was just supposed to be a clearinghouse to make sure different agencies were not running concurrent investigations on the same people, to establish de-conflict on protocols and develop partnerships for agencies to work together? Where representatives from the various agencies would get together and compare notes?
I remember that.
Now they have armed agents all over the place trying to figure out if they’re Customs, DEA, FBI, Marshals, etc etc. etc.
It’s not a tax, it’s not on everybody, and it’s voluntary...
Until it’s not, comrade.
And why would you want a mileage tax Representative Donkey?
So the Republicans, who often live in the outer suburbs, pay more tax than the Democrats, who generally live closer to town.
Yeah, just like the darned shots.
They are going to have to do something about electric cars, which don’t pay the tax applied to gasoline. A mileage tax might make sense for them. I like the idea of paying taxes for roads based on how much you use them. Trucks pay a fortune - and they should.
For electric cars. They pay no “gas” tax.
When/if we go to electric vehicles, they’ll need to make up for gas taxes. States will want to do it too.
Gonna suck for us rural people. It’s 50 miles round trip to a town for us.
Much easier to ask, “What kind of disaster is NOT in the infrastructure bill or any other bill for that matter?”
This mess is a shop of horrors and it is BIG, not little.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The administration has not proposed that tax. A provision in Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill before Congress would establish a national study to assess how such a tax could be implemented. It would not actually enact that tax, nor it does not outline a rate of 8 cents per mile.
Can I ask a stupid question? Why in the sam hill would anyone want to merely study how to assess a type of tax, unless they had already conceived of the idea of implementing such a tax?
And does anyone seriously believe, that such a study of the tax, once completed, would conclude that we should NOT actually implement the tax???
This is sophistry to say they are merely studying this type of tax.
“You have to read the bill to find out what’s in it” - all 10,000 plus pages.
> AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. <
If the AP says that it’s false then it’s probably true.
Some have said a mileage tax would replace the current gas taxes.
More likely, we will end up with both a mileage tax and a gas tax.
Perhaps electric cars should pay a mileage tax, since they pay no gas taxes.
But as electric car use increases in the years ahead, a mileage tax would be used so that electric car owners are paying taxes to pay for roads.
Maybe off topic, but in some places, gas tax revenue has been diverted to other uses. There really needs to be some structure in place, to ensure that specific taxes paid for specific purposes go only to those purposes.
8.1 cents per mile! Given the current Pennsylvania gasoline tax of 58.7 cents per gallon this proposal assumes the average auto only gets 58.7 / 8.1 = 7.2 mpg. I have not gotten that kind of gas guzzling mileage since I owned a 454 big block and had a lead foot.
Put another way, with the current middle of the road CAFE standard of about 30 mpg the 8.1 cents per mile tax amounts to something like $2.00 per gallon!
It doesn’t take anything but math to figure out these maggots are thieves and stupid.
https://taxfoundation.org/pennsylvania-considers-equivalent-2-per-gallon-gas-tax/
“Seriously, if this isn’t being “proposed” then why do they need the money to study it?”
The dems are insisting we move off gasoline/diesel fueled vehicles. Therefore they will have to implement an alternative to gasoline taxes.
They need a study to figure out how to implement a mileage tax.
To get more taxpayer $ the speed from “study” to “implement” is nanoseconds.
And since this administration know NO ONE will push back on any dictate, this will happen.
This isn’t about collecting revenue, it is about control. Taxing people per mile would require installing a massive infrastructure to track vehicles and sensors in the cars. There is no way that this predatory government will trust Americans to voluntarily report their odometer mileage every so often.
There are much more efficient ways of raising revenue than this approach.
…and the Gasoline Tax will NEVER be repealed, in fact, that, too, will skyrocket because of “climate change..” Summary: The Demoncrat Party wants ALL of the money.
cause the gas tax isn’t a mileage tax...
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