Fairest driving tax = vehicle weight + miles driven

leaf-going-lefteditors-blog-entry3There’s been more and more talk of plug-in vehicles and how they’re “cheating” the gasoline tax system.

Different proposals have been put forward — flat taxes/fees for plug-in cars, etc. However, there’s only one tax formula that’s ultimately fairest for all involved.

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Here it is –>

1. Weight of vehicle + total annual miles driven — regardless of whether a vehicle is gasoline or electric powered (or both).

Will the tracking system needed for such a system be an “invasion of privacy”?

Perhaps.

But it’s a lot fairer to plug-in drivers than a flat-fee/tax system, a system which singles out plug-in owners and penalizes them for driving cleaner, usually smaller/lighter cars. Equally frustrating: A flat tax/fee system fails to reward those who drive fewer miles and who own lighter vehicles which are clearly less destructive to the American transportation infrastructure than heavier vehicles.

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