"Hybrid Tax" (or fee) in your state? Legal?

Daniel it is nice to hear from you! However, holy cow, your argument is that by buying a hybrid we self-nominate ourselves for higher rates, based on using hybrid ownership as an indicator of wealth and ability to pay more.

You should move to northern Virginia where I estimate upper bound 25% car tax rate for a hypothetical $100K green car with a low depreciation rate. Basically a Tesla Model-S, but I assign a moderate depreciation rate to Model-S, so I estimate 20% car tax on your car in north VA. If you lived in VA, you may not have opted for the Tesla, and that's my point, if we tax the dickens on something like Tesla or Highlander hybrid, it will kill the sales off, when what we want is more green cars.

 

Your issue lies with the county governments in nova. They essentially conceded to the tax, in addition to the increased property taxes, sales taxes, fuel taxes that plague the northern part of the state. Your battle will be best fought at the county level.

Or you could move.

 

That's the whole problem...we are staying in VA for unexpected family reasons.
We had a foot out the door. So now I have to become a concerned citizen in Virginia.
Please bear with me as the hybrid fee issue is still alive as far as I know.
I am thinking a repeal effort gets started in the Fall.

 

My real point is that we all have very convincing reasons why WE should not be taxed. This pervasive attitude is why we are in debt up to our ears to China. I will take whatever the government foolishly offers to give me, but I will vote for higher taxes (including on myself) until our debts are paid off.

Again, the tax breaks for Prius buyers in 2004 did not result in the sale of a single additional Prius, since Toyota could not meet the demand. And Tesla produced 2,500 Roadsters, which was their plan from the start, and I would have bought mine even without the federal and state tax breaks. I admit I'm not familiar with the situation in VA. But I bought my Tesla after Nissan effed me over four times in a row and lied to me for over half a year, and the ill-fated electric Porsche project was failing to come to fruition, and I wanted a freeway-capable EV so badly that I turned to the only other alternative at the time. So, yes, once I test-drove the Roadster and saw that they had fixed the problems with the engineering prototype, I'd have bought it regardless of the taxes. It's a rich man's toy, and such things should never get tax breaks.

(Though giving the LOAN to Tesla was a good move, since it enabled a US technology/car company to get past difficult times and create jobs and an American industry, and they paid off the loan ahead of time. Loan, yes. Tax breaks for buyers, no, until there's an EV that blue-collar working folks can afford.)

 

constitutional law was my highest grade a million years ago in law school. But since precision is not what the real question is focused on - how about the common man's answer ... it's pretty darn near the same thing anyway;

.

 

Good points Daniel!!...I guess that's part of the reason it's hard to get traction on changing tax structure, everyone sort of tunes out. But I think the correct (fair) answer on hybrid fees are very state-specific.

In VA we definitely have a car tax problem that several recent governors tried to fix. One repub gov phased-out the car tax in 2000, then the next democrat gov (current VA Senator Mark Warner) started phasing it back in. The next democrat gov (current VA Senator Kaine) tried to end it in 2010, but he did not have a well-thought out alternative. Part of the prob is our VA govs only get to serve one 4-yr term, so we are always kicking them out.

 

Like I said, everyone thinks the taxes on them are unfair. So instead we just borrow from China, and leave the next generation to deal with the debt. What's "fair" is always in dispute. A flat tax weighs hardest on the poor, since paying 10% of your income when you already cannot pay the rent and still buy food is a lot harder than paying 10% of your income when you can afford to buy a yacht. A graduated tax is much more fair, since the wealthy can afford to pay a larger percent of their income. I say this even though I would pay less under a flat tax.

The charge that the government "prints money like there's no tomorrow" is just plain silly. The relatively low rate of inflation gives the lie to that charge. What we are doing is borrowing money like we'll never have to pay it back. And that's going to come back to bite us on the butt. Borrowing money with no intention of paying it back, and leaving the debt to the next generation is just plain thievery. We either pay taxes or we borrow, and having made the decision to do the latter makes us a nation of crooks.

Once upon a time, the gas tax was a fairly reasonable way to pay for roads, since the heavier cars that put more wear and tear on the roads used more gas, and the more miles you drove the more gas you bought. Hybrids and EVs are using less gas so are not paying our fair share. We need a different way to pay for roads, and while taxing based on miles driven and weight of vehicle would be a better choice, it's not practical. A measly $65 tax on hybrids probably doesn't come close to making up the difference, and complaining about paying $65 a year on your $30,000 car is just petty.

 

I am not sure I agree with that sentiment. Please take a look at my blog post on the subject:


Blue Virginia:: Virginia Car Tax Reaches 25% Total for some Vehicles


Kindly advise if any errors.
Anyone from Georgia? Please chime in on how Georgia's new car tax system is working...believe this is what VA needs to do too.

 

Although it's the number we tend to focus on most, the initial purchase price of a car is only one part of what it costs to own and operate. Approximately half of these costs are borne by the owner/driver, and the other half are paid for through general taxation and subsidies. This is not a sustainable model - we need to figure out who pays for what, in an equitable way.

 

Not sure if that's supposed to be an insult to hurt my feelings or not, but it doesn't matter.

What matters is the weakness of your "blog" post.

You factor in things like "increased cost of ownership" and "depreciation", two things that taxes play no part in. If a hybrid costs $4000 more to buy as you stated then its always going to cost $4000 more, regardless of tax. You're going to pay more sales/property tax because you chose to buy a car that's $4000 more expensive.

As far as teslas depreciation, I would suspect that is because you're essentially paying $100,000 to be a guinea pig. The people that pay for this car assume that risk and have the funds to roll the dice with.

Again your issue lies with the democrat run northern virginia counties. As Daniel stated before, if you want "things" you have to pay for them.

Northern virginia counties want lots of "things", and therefore they tax the hell out of their residents for them. That's why I don't live there. You should be beating down the doors at your county government complex and not the governors mansion because as Daniel said in the grand scheme of things $64 per year isn't going to alienate many hybrid/ev buyers.

County tax rates might though.

 

That you for the constructive feedback! I appreciate outside NoVA feedback even if it is hard to accept sometimes. Many times you and I are in good agreement.

I apologize if my prior note was flippant; I guess I was trying to discredit the idea that $64/yr tax is not worth arguing about. I have changed the post. You guys are saying if government wants to charge someone $64/yr, because they were born on Tuesday, or bought a hybrid, or is a balding male (me) there can be no valid complaint about this small number even if it is unfair.

The thing is we have a number of states, VA, WA, NC, IN considering hybrid fees. VA implemented already, but the dems are changing their mind on it. I am trying to fight it, where fighting it is the right answer.

I agree with what QDLLC said in an earlier post, if your state gives a lot of tax credits to hybrids/PHEV, its hard to argue against some tax. If your state tax system naturally penalizes hybrids (VA) then not so fair. So I am trying to look at each state scientifically by the tax numbers. Prior thread on WA hybrid tax I gave my tax analysis of that situation.

 

Is the tax stupid? Sure. $64 isn't going to make a dent in anything. But you need to examine what the morons (not saying you're one of them) in the northern VA counties wanted in exchange for their concession to the tax.

If I were a betting man, my best guess is that the northern county government conceded to the hybrid tax because they knew that a) it would make headlines everywhere and b) it would distract the sheep's attention away from where the real fleecing is going on. And that is ridiculous property, real estate, sales, and gasoline taxes.

I'm glad that the hybrid tax has been the straw for you, but again if I lived in one of the nova counties I would take a long hard look at how much of my money is going out, and what I'm getting in return. If we're just looking at roads I can tell from experience that nova roads blow as much as richmond roads do, but I probably pay half as much taxes as you do.

 

I have found in my 65 years of life that I usually agree with most people about some things, and I usually disagree with most people about some things.

While there is definitely risk associated with adopting a new technology, high-performance sports cars have always been expensive to maintain. That's less a "risk" than a given. I did find it odd that wjtracy assumed that the Teslas would have a low depreciation. The detractors keep saying the battery packs will degrade fast and be expensive to replace, which would suggest a large depreciation. Of course that's where we (Tesla owners) are taking a risk, though the risk of low resale value only matters if you plan on selling a car while it still has a good bit of use left in it. Early Prius buyers bragged about being pioneers, willing to take a chance on a forward-thinking idea. I never thought of my Prius that way, since Toyota is a huge company with a track record of quality and the wherewithal to back its warranties. I do think of myself as a pioneer with regard to EVs, willing to take a chance on a truly forward-thinking idea.

And as much as I hate paying tax (and I pay a lot of tax) it is the price of citizenship, and I'd really rather pay high taxes than see my country go deeper into debt to China and other foreign nations. And since my Tesla uses no gasoline and therefore does not contribute to road maintenance, I am a strong advocate for some kind of alternative tax to pay for my use of the roads.

In a way, taxes are like exercise. I really do not enjoy sitting for 45 minutes or an hour on the exercise bike. It's boring, and since I ride hard to get the most benefit, it's tiring. But I do it because that hour of discomfort buys 23 hours of good health. I hate paying thousands and thousands of dollars in taxes. But I do it because I don't want to live in the kind of country where there are no taxes and no garbage collection or sewers.

 

Well, I am assigning medium depreciation to Tesla Model-S as the more likely case (sample calcs in the Tesla thread on Virginia stores). In reality rare cars are handled as special case in VA taxes so I don't really know how it works. So I am using Tesla as a "prop" in the blog.

 

For states with regular inspections, odometer readings for taxes would not be difficult at all. For other states, a flat tax might be the simplest solution. With the stated purpose of recouping lost gas tax revenue, don't single out hybrids. Base it upon mpg ratings. Fuel economy is improving in all segments. Taxing just the hybrids, including the not so efficient power ones, isn't going to close the gap alone.

Something to keep in mind is that the gas taxes collected don't actually go into a seperate fund for roads. They go into the general fund and then get divided out. So the taxes on the electric bill for the EV may actually be used for roads too.

In Virginia, where the $64 tax is, the stated purpose doesn't jive. They passed a tax on hybrids, and also lowered the state gas tax.

 

the state gas tax in VA is .111 per gallon
Paying $64 divided by .111 = 577 gallons supposedly not used and not paid for.

Lets say you had a Honda Civic (comparable vehicle) at 38mpg, drove 20,000 miles, you used 527 gallons and paid $58.49 state gas tax at the pump

The Prius is 50 mpg and that tax is paid at the pump. .111 for every 50 miles driven.
You drove the Prius 20,000 miles, used 400 gallons and paid tax of $44.40 at the pump.
To be fair you saved $14.09 on gas tax because you did not burn as much gas.
You could pay the $14.09 to the State of Va to be fair, however paying $64 extra means VA assumes every Prius is driven 91,000 a year.
Really fleecing the Prius Hybrid owners heh.
I think my math is close...

 

There's a lot of talk in this thread about fairness. But the problem is that we only see unfairness when it hits us. What about the unfairness of crappy schools in the inner cities that affects people for their whole lives? What about the unfairness of discrimination in hiring? What about the unfairness that a child born to a rich family might never have to work a day in his life, while a child born to a poor family may spend his life doing back-breaking labor for minimum wage? What about the unfairness in the enforcement of drug laws, where cops will kick down doors in Watts, guns blazing, looking for a little bit of pot, but won't even investigate the same thing in Beverly Hills? What about the unfairness in the courts, where the outcome of a trial depends more on whether or not you can afford to hire a good lawyer than on whether you are actually guilty or not?

Compared to all that, the "unfairness" of $64 in taxes on a Prius is pretty petty stuff.

I'm more concerned with issues of health care and a living wage and racism and homophobia than with whether my car taxes are a tiny bit out of line from my actual miles driven.

People are being ground into the dirt by unfairness. Complaining about $64 in taxes on hybrids is self-centered and just plain petty.