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

Maine's sales/use tax is 5%. Everywhere. (When people complain about the complications of Internet companies calculating sales tax, I laugh. Just have to know whether something is taxable by the state.)

Vehicle Excise Tax is based on the MSRP and goes, by year:
2.4%, 1.75%, 1.35%, 1%, 0.65% (7.15% over 5 years) then 0.4% all years thereafter (9.15% over first 10 years)..
If you buy a holdover you skip year 1.

 

I agree with the sentiment, but.....tax rates on cars are unfairly LOW, not high. We typically pay about half, directly, with the rest coming from general taxation; mostly income taxes. If users paid the full cost directly, through gas taxes, road taxes, tolls, and insurance, there'd be enough income taxes left over to pay for social costs, and homelessness, hunger, and health care would not be the problems they are now.

 

Since we're getting personal, you're being stupid.

The complaint is not petty, because the argument isn't about the amount. It wouldn't matter whether it was 1c or $1,000. The problem is that the whole policy is based on a lie and is patently ridiculous. Saying people aren't paying enough per mile and then making up for it with a fee that is:
a) fixed instead of actually being tied to road use
b) not paid by people who bought a conventional vehicle with improved fuel economy
... has no basis in fairness or economic reality.
That's not to mention that they conveniently ignore that expenditure attract sales tax, and in fact VA's sales tax was 5% which meant that if you were saving at $3.43 per gallon when you spent your $3.43 you'd have paid 16 1/3c in sales tax instead of 17.5c in state and 18.4c in Federal taxes. But note, you only saved that ~19.5c on the gas you saved. So if you're getting 50mpg and using half the gas of an ordinary car you're actually saving less than 10c per 25 miles, or 0.4c per mile. You'd have to drive 16,000 miles per year to "cost" the State+Fed gas fund $64 and that's only in a 50mpg Prius v 25mpg car comparison. And, worse, it also ignores the benefits of lowering state gasoline imports, reducing pollution and improving economic efficiency.

Complaining about the hybrid tax is complaining about bad economic and environmental policy, which is pretty much what you do here. I'd have called you a hypocrite, but I simply think you're haven't thought the policy justification and effects through.

PS The gas tax has never, ever been a good tax. It's only there because of the ease of collection. Hybrids just came along and made it obvious how stupid it has always been.

 

You clearly do not understand the difference between criticizing an idea or policy, and insulting the person offering the argument. Calling people stupid is a violation of the TOS and just bad form. Call my idea stupid if you feel it is. Calling me stupid (whether I am or not) just makes it look as though you have no convincing argument.

It is preposterous to assert that there's no difference between one penny and a thousand dollars. Quantity does change quality. You want to hide behind a claim of "principle" when you're just arguing against taxing yourself.

On the contrary. Some Prius owners are so convinced that they are saving the world by driving a car that burns 2/3 as much gasoline as a similar size gas car, that they have convinced themselves they should get tax deductions and other benefits when they buy one, and that they should not have to pay their fair share of road taxes. This comes down to the prodigious human capacity for justifying a belief that we deserve more while others deserve less.

I disagree again. We desperately need a steep carbon tax. We ALSO need to fund our roads. These are two separate needs. Every car should pay its share of road costs, and since there will never be a perfect way to do this, we will have to settle for some less-than-perfect way. Gas taxes did a pretty good job before hybrids and EVs, and a surcharge on those cars now makes sense.

I'd like to see every car fitted with a black box that would enforce traffic laws and log mileage for a perfectly fair road use tax. But that's not going to happen any time soon. Maybe in a decade. Maybe two or three. But for now, a surcharge on cars that burn less gas, or no gas, is probably the only practical solution.

As a separate issue, we need to tax carbon if we are to have the slightest hope of leaving future generations with a world in which it will be possible for humans to survive. Otherwise, the last humans will choke to death cursing the memory of the selfish ba****ds who burned all the fossil fuels as fast as we possibly could with no regard for the future.

 

I strongly agree. This is an all-too-common problem, and not just here.

 

Are saying Maine total 10-yr tax = 5 + 9.15 = 14.15% tax?

If so, Maine sounds much like VA, except the Kelly blue book value is not used, which is good. Also Maine's is not a progressive tax with car cost as per VA. Therefore your system is naturally friendlier to Prius/Hybrids. Virginia also lets every town adjust the % tax factors.

I would like to see Virginia adopt the Maine methods, we could have Tax = F x (2.4%, 1.75%, 1.35%, 1%, 0.65%) whereas F is the town's fudge factor and must be 1 or less.

 

You might want to read this article:

Source: New Vehicle Fuel Economy Reaches All-Time High | TheDetroitBureau.com

In effect, the trend on fuel economy for all vehicles is headed towards efficiency. This $64 hybrid tax is just a scapegoat for the lower gas sales due to a more efficient fleet.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson