Oooor. We already pay taxes for the roads, why is there a fuel tax at all. It’s like airline fees. They charge you up front for the flight, then have fees for all sorts of things. Only with taxes, each tax cost a significant amount to collect. One central tax for everything would save a lot of money. But of course somewhere there is a director of fuel taxes bringing home a couple hundred k a year…
We don’t properly pay taxes for roads. Like at all. We have a shit load of roads in the US and the maintenance is insane on them. Me paying my measly $900 a year in registration for my truck isn’t enough for the cost of roads, vehicle certifications, bridges, gas subsidies, tunnels, cleaning, water purification due to run-off, and thousands of other things that cars cause. Americans (me included) have the real cost of a driving centric country hidden from us and we act like taxing it appropriately is insane rather than realizing we chose the most inefficient method of transportation. A central tax doesn’t make sense because a lot of people in New York (as an example) don’t drive. Why should they pay for additional upkeep on roads they don’t actively use? They need bike lanes, walk ways, and subway infrastructure. Taxing vehicles at registration makes more sense. The idea behind the gas tax was that for people who drive more, and therefore use more infrastructure, they would pay more. It was designed to be fair and spread the cost evenly, but that’s clearly becoming a problem. Now we’re learning what that cost actually feels like and it sucks because we’re stuck with the bad decisions of our parents and grandparents.
Oooor. We already pay taxes for the roads, why is there a fuel tax at all. It’s like airline fees. They charge you up front for the flight, then have fees for all sorts of things. Only with taxes, each tax cost a significant amount to collect. One central tax for everything would save a lot of money. But of course somewhere there is a director of fuel taxes bringing home a couple hundred k a year…
We don’t properly pay taxes for roads. Like at all. We have a shit load of roads in the US and the maintenance is insane on them. Me paying my measly $900 a year in registration for my truck isn’t enough for the cost of roads, vehicle certifications, bridges, gas subsidies, tunnels, cleaning, water purification due to run-off, and thousands of other things that cars cause. Americans (me included) have the real cost of a driving centric country hidden from us and we act like taxing it appropriately is insane rather than realizing we chose the most inefficient method of transportation. A central tax doesn’t make sense because a lot of people in New York (as an example) don’t drive. Why should they pay for additional upkeep on roads they don’t actively use? They need bike lanes, walk ways, and subway infrastructure. Taxing vehicles at registration makes more sense. The idea behind the gas tax was that for people who drive more, and therefore use more infrastructure, they would pay more. It was designed to be fair and spread the cost evenly, but that’s clearly becoming a problem. Now we’re learning what that cost actually feels like and it sucks because we’re stuck with the bad decisions of our parents and grandparents.