Gas tax or tax by miles?
Created: 02/20/2009 6:57 PM KSTP.com
How should you be taxed for using our nation's roads? The U.S. Transportation Secretary wants to consider killing the gas tax and billing drivers for the number of miles they drive instead—a concept that Minnesota has been looking into for several years.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty is a big proponent of the mileage tax replacing the gas tax. The state has spent money studying the idea, but the state can't go far with it if the rest of the country doesn't go along.
Right now, more than 40-cents of every gallon of gas you buy goes to state and federal gas taxes. But Minnesota’s state gas tax collections are running about three to five-percent below expectations this year.
Between 2006 and 2007, state gas tax revenue declined from $629 million to $626 million. Even though the gas tax has gone up more than a nickel since April, there's concern it's still a declining or unstable funding source.
Some politicians, including Pawlenty, say taxing people by the miles they drive would be more stable.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation is preparing a demonstration project in the next year or so to show whether a mileage-based system would work. It could involve a tracking device of some kind placed in your car that would keep track of how many miles you drive.
It’s not likely Minnesota could do this unless the federal government and all other states went along—it would be difficult to determine miles driven in the state from miles driven in other states. And with the Obama administration nixing the idea on Friday, it's likely not moving forward anytime soon.
http://kstp.com/news/stories/S798526.shtml?cat=206
Looks like Obama will not go through with it. But its possible.
Lahood's Idea of a National Mileage Tax Nixed
WEEK-TV
updated 7:50 p.m. PT, Fri., Feb. 20, 2009
President Barack Obama will not adopt a plan to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive.
President Barack Obama will not adopt a plan to tax motorists based on how many miles they drive. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs commented about Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's proposal to tax people by how many miles they drive instead of raising the federal gasoline tax. Friday, Gibbs says the tax will not be the policy of the Obama administration. LaHood said the gasoline tax that pays for the federal share of highway and bridge construction can no longer raise enough money to keep up with the nation's transportation system. Other transportation experts see the vehicle miles traveled tax as a long-term solution and some states are talking about such programs. LaHood says he is firmly opposed to raising the federal gasoline tax in the surrent recession and was just trying to think outside the box as a way to fund the nation's infrastructure.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29306134/
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