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

Frank- your math is close maybe closer to $20-$25/yr VA state tax avoided by a Prius...thus $64/yr is overkill for VA (the state with the lowest gaso tax except Alaska). However, the VA Republican's counter that the federal gaso tax (18.5 cents per gallon) must also be considered a tax underpayment in VA, because they say in reality the state gets that money back. This probably means part of our "gripe" is also with the US Congress who is rewarding states with gas guzzlers by giving them more tax dollars back.

Daniel we are trying to not be petty here. I am not personally paying the $64/yr fees in VA, because for those reading Prius Chat tips and tricks, we previously recommended registering your vehicle ahead 3 years in VA to avoid the new fees (too late now for that tip). My concern is strictly that the hybrid fees, as "unfairly" promulgated in VA, will slow down hybrid sales in VA, which had been No. 5 in sales surprisingly. I calculate that a hybrid in VA may cost $1500-$2500 more tax in VA than a similar non-hybrid model. So now you are paying ~$6000 more (car+taxes) for the hybrid and the math falls apart for those of us who do the math. So my next car may not be a hybrid in VA.

 

It's not the amount, it's the principle. That 64 dollar question isn't likely to break anyone, but it represents a much larger unfairness. We pay gas taxes that don't go to road maintenances, we pay property taxes to pay for transit, we pay tolls on some roads and bridges but not others, and cyclists are told to get off the road because of the misconception that they don't pay for them. True, life is often unfair, but transportation funding does not need to be so illogical and unfair. User pay, all the way!

 

so? ..... the dollar you earn or spend nowadays is equivalent to two cents 100 years ago - IE it's still a bargain.
.

 

Or in other words, if I can afford it it's not luxury and should not be taxed. Only people with more money than I have should be taxed.

Daniel's graduated tax plan: Everybody who makes more than I do should be taxed 90%. Everybody who makes less than I do should be taxed 5%. And everybody who makes exactly as much as I do should be taxed 1%.

 

^ Heck.
I sure wouldn't mind being taxed at 5%!!!

Lemme know how your plan works out.

 

Your argument is still flawed. Before the $64 tax a hybrid still cost $1500-$2500 more in taxes because they are and always will be more expensive than a similar non hybrid car.

So now it costs $1564-$2564 more in taxes.

You seem more upset that hybrids cost more (they always will) than the fact that it now costs $64 more to drive one.

 

So far, I have not convinced any congresscritters.

Your arguments are perfectly logical. The problem is that EVERYONE has very logical reasons why THEY should not be taxed. Humans are supremely adept at finding reasons why they deserve more stuff and others deserve less stuff.

You are complaining because your $30,000 car is taxed a few bucks more than comparison with other cars seems to justify. Meanwhile children are going to bed hungry and people in low-end jobs have no health care, because Americans are too stinking stingy to accept responsibility and vote themselves enough taxes to support basic services without worrying whether the other guy is paying exactly the commensurate tax they are.

Warren Buffet has it right when he says "The government should tax me more than it does." We'd be a better country if people started saying "The government should tax me more," instead of always complaining that they are being taxed too much, and making high-sounding arguments about "fairness" over petty amounts.

 

I got a little sloppy with my numbers there, not defining my terms.
Just keep in mind I am always talking about 10-yr cumulative taxes in my calcs for VA taxes.

So $64/yr fee is $640 total cumulative tax bit due to hybrid fee.
So I was trying to say, with the hybrid fee, total 10-yr cumulative tax on hybrid in VA is $1500-2500 more than similar non-hybrid. so your incremental cost of hybrid is ~$4000 car + ~2000 tax = $6000 in VA and if you doing <12000 mi/yr maybe you should not buy a hybrid (if you had thought it was saving you money).

 

This was a big issue, with a lot of people getting worked up, back in the early years, and maybe still is, but I don't visit the car forums anymore: You do not "save" money by buying a hybrid car. In fact, you never "save" money by spending money. At best, you spend less money with smart choices. But in the case of cars, no new car is ever the most economical transportation. The most economical transportation is a reliable 5 or 6 year old econobox, such as a Civic or Corolla.

Nobody buys a BMW to "save" money. Nobody buys a Porsche to "save" money. People buy them because they want what the car offers. In the case of a hybrid, you pay more money in the showroom in order to burn less gas, either for environmental reasons or because you don't want to feed the oil exporters. Or in my case, because you like the technology. Or a mix of factors. While not in the Lexus category, the Prius was a step up in luxury for me.

Yes, lifetime taxes (as well as fuel, tires, and maintenance and repair) should go into your calculation of whether or not you can afford the car. But anyone who buys a hybrid because they think it's the most economical transportation is very much mistaken. Most people, however, choose the car they buy for emotional, not financial reasons.

And arbitrarily multiplying the annual tax by ten in order to get a bigger number, is disingenuous. Why not multiply it by 25, because some people keep their car that long. Or by 5, because I'll bet a lot of folks only keep their car that long. And anyway, with inflation, that $64 in ten years will only be worth about $5. Assuming they even keep the tax. And assuming there's any gasoline left by then to put into it.

 

Not trying to be disingenuous...I have already posted too many copies of the detailed calcs. I am trying to look at total taxes. For example, Maine does their cat tax (Freudian slip) like this (approx. 4%, 3%, 2%, 1%) each year the sales tax is spread out over 4 years - I am off a little, believe in Maine it adds up to about 11.5% car tax.

That's the ticket, we are going to taxing cats.

 

Oh, are they ever going to howl when they hear this......


Tax me more, tax me less...just give me value for money, make it logical, and let me control how much I pay by controlling how much I use. Fair?

 

If not mistaken, wjtracy choose ten because Va doesn't tax 11 year old cars.

We do pay little in taxes in the US, and gas taxes have not kept up with the road repair and expansion costs. Then there is the drop in gas consumption from increased efficiency and the recession. If people want to drive on roads without potholes, and bridges without worry, then they have to pay more tax.

Ideally, the road tax would be tied to miles driven and weight or size class. Next would be to simply raise the gas tax. The first requires some effort and will to implement, and the second, no politician has the backbone to do. So they target hybrids and BEVs. Depending on the tax rates for electric, BEVs and maybe PHVs might require an additional fee.

Going after the non-plug in hybrids is targeting a technology without considering the results. Take the HiHy. It gets 28mpg which is better than what other SUV/tall wagons get. The 4 cylinder Camry gets 28 combined. The Altima gets 31. Why hit the HiHy with an extra tax when it is using the same amount or more gas than other cars on the road? If we are trying to make up reduced revenue from fuel taxes, then we shouldn't be targeting just the hybrids, but all the efficient cars.

Hybrids are still a minority in the fleet. Taxing just them isn't going to net that much to begin with. It also means that their impact on the fleet fuel economy is only in part. The other are the improvements in engines, transmissions, tires, and chassis for non-hybrid cars. With the rising CAFE target, the efficiency of all vehicles will be rising. Are we going to start slapping extra taxes on sub-compacts next, then sedans, etc.

There is a thread just on the Va hybrid tax issue. It isn't about raising funds for road work. It's Republican socialism for their base in the lower part of the state.

 

That's very true...as much as I "complain" about VA car tax, bottom line is you can control you own taxes. An average $31250 car might be as high as 20% tax if its a hybrid ($6250 tax) but so instead buy a used non-hybrid $15000 car and you save maybe $4000 off your tax bill (over 10-yrs on one car) not to mention $16250 saved on the car.

Also I am not really complaining about anything 3 VA governors have not tried to fix it the last 10-yrs. We have specific prob in VA, that the towns like to get a lot of their tax income from taxing cars...and I think I'd like to cap it at 10% of new car value...plus the state gets 4% sales tax so I want to cap it at 14% total tax. I also want to get the depreciation out the equation. Just tax the new cat, I mean car, value.

 

Well, VA keeps taxing past 10-yrs, so I cut it off at 10-yrs, which is my personal typical life of car. But as your car book value drops, the tax amount goes down. Some towns stop taxing when car value drops below $1000-$3000.

It's really the localities who are taxing each year, the state gets the 4% sales tax and hybrid fees.

 

In NH we have no sales tax however there is a town tax on each vehicle that is registered. It goes down to a flat $3 per thousand list price when new and stays there forever.

At one time diesel fuel state tax was paid to each state separate from the federal tax which was paid at the pump. This allowed states to get paid for the roads damaged by heavy trucks from other states too.
I have had diesel cars for years in NH. We used to have to keep track of our gallons used each quarter and submit the fuel tax quarterly.
Then the state had a fee (tax) for a diesel permit. A diesel car paid $25 and a rebate could be filed yearly for unused portion once the annual mileage was submitted.
Of course this got abused so they finally would not give a rebate. This lasted one year then all the states collected diesel fuel state tax at the pump, the same as gas tax. This is the way it works to this day.
It did take several years before they came up with some thing that works.
Perhaps total electric cars should have a permit and a hybrid another type of permit. This would a tax to pay for road damage/repairs. Right now they can not get paid under the system currently in place.
Charging $64 a year is robbery as some have shown using simply math. Things will change, it just takes time.

In the mean time posting about unfair social problems has no place in this discussion and a lame way to divert the real issue of fair taxation. Posting social and political injustice is off topic in my opinion.

All we want to do is pay our fair share, right.

 

Social justice is absolutely on topic, because I am trying to point out the pettiness of complaining about very small discrepancies in fairness, compared with what's going on in the real world. If someone points a gun at me and demands a dime, I will give him the dime and not even bother reporting it to the police, as the hassle and energy just isn't worth the inconvenience of losing a dime. Yes, he committed a crime. He robbed me. But I lose more by making a stink than by letting him have the dime.

And FWIW, if there are any Christians on the anti-tax side of this argument (I'm not one myself, as is well known), Paul said to pay your taxes, and Jesus said if someone robs you, give him even more than he took. Not sure about the folks posting here, but there is certainly a good deal of overlap between the Christian right and the anti-taxers.

I am agreeing that the hybrid tax is not precisely, exactly, "fair" to the penny compared with the taxes that conventional cars pay, but the practical and political difficulty of devising and implementing a plan that is precisely fair is just too great. If we want good roads, somebody has to pay. We can waste our time and money fighting like Arabs and Israelis over the last dime of tax fairness, while our roads keep getting worse and worse, or we can accept that taxes will never be exactly fair to the last penny, and get on with the job of financing our roads even if you and I have to pay a few bucks more than is precisely "fair." As it is, I don't pay my fair share of road taxes because my primary car uses no gas at all, and my road-trip car gets 50 mpg. I advocate and will vote for higher taxes on my cars.

I've been to vacation places where people pay two or three thousand dollars a week, and then won't give a decent tip to the underpaid staff. I say, if you can afford the resort, you can afford a decent tip. Well, in this argument, I'm saying if you can afford the car you can afford the tax to pay for the roads your car will drive on. That tax is part of the total cost of ownership, and everybody reading this is smart enough to do the calculation before they buy the car to decide if they can afford it. Can't afford a HyHi? Settle for a Prius. Can't afford a Prius? Settle for a Corolla. Can't afford a new Corolla? Settle for a used one. Angry that you can't afford the car you want? Demand fair wages and universal health care so that you have sufficient disposable income for the car you want. Taxes are never going to be 100% equitable; consider yourself lucky that your biggest complaint is that you are paying an unfair tax rate on your car, when we live in a country where people are homeless, hungry, and have no health care.

 

Thank you Frank...I like to hear how different states do it