Well Hello New Tax

[TechMan]

We are so screwed....https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2021/08/05/heres-what-john-roberts-found-buried-in-the-2700-page-infrastructure-bill-so-much-for-bidens-middle-class-tax-promise/

[sumpnz]

IF (caps intentional) they eliminated gas taxes this wouldn’t be a huge deal insofar as total taxes go.  Problem is they’ll never eliminate that so long as gas continues to be sold at all, so anyone not driving an EV gets double taxed on their vehicle use.  Which is a feature for them, not a bug. 

Even if this was somehow revenue neutral though, the fact they can track not just total vehicle miles but also where you go (since odometer reporting won’t be trustworthy - rollbacks are a big problem already in used car sales) has huge privacy implications.  This would only work with GPS tracking and reporting of miles driven which inherently means tracking when and where you go at all times.  There are technological solutions to those privacy issues but they’ll never be seriously discussed.  (E.g. something that could track movement without location info - like a radar or laser that could only measure speed and therefore distance traveled, and then to eliminate the “when” aspects only reported weekly or monthly or quarterly totals).

[Nick1911]

The gas tax method was/is a problem with electric vehicles.  It would need to be addressed at some point.

I'd be disappointed, but not at all surprised if the solution had privacy implications, and ultimately cost the average person more money.

[Ben]

How will they set it up to not tax people making under $400K?

"The president has been clear throughout these negotiations: He is adamantly opposed to raising taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year," White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in mid-June. "After the extraordinarily hard times that ordinary Americans endured in 2020 — job losses, shrinking incomes, squeezed budgets — he is simply not going to allow Congress to raise taxes on those who suffered the most."

[Boomhauer]

How will they set it up to not tax people making under $400K?

By calling it a user fee and not a tax

[dogmush]

As with you folks, I'm concerned about the privacy issues. Pretty much anything other than a yearly odometer check is much more granular than I'd like the .gov watching my travel.

I think this would also be a pretty hard sell politically right now, as it's a pretty regressive tax, and all the usual suspects will come out of the woodwork to describe how it's racist (because poor folks have to pay it), Sexist (because it would hit single moms), probably white nationalist (gonna tax indigenous people to drive on the land you stole) and whatever the hell other tribal group doesn't want to pay.  Gas taxes were passed and accepted before today's toxic mix of intersectional specialness took over everything.

Can you imagine the caterwauling if they tacked on an extra 30 cents or whatever per mile to and hit folks with that?  Why AOC's mom wouldn't have been able to drive to the Hamptons and clean mansions.

[French G.]

At some point I would be taking the tags off of my car and putting them on the not registered car and going where I wanted to go with my not registered to me phone. Take the fines when I get caught. I imagine that phones would do the mileage reporting, kinda like the voluntary insurance apps already do.

[Ben]

I didn't read what's in this particular bill, but one of the "options" I read about previously, as the left's way of mitigating privacy issues, was assigning people "X" miles per year based on some different tier groups. So group X might be assigned 20K miles, while group Y is assigned 12K miles. Doesn't matter if they drive more or less, they pay on their assigned miles.

Who knows how they would assign groups. Maybe by skin color and gender.

[WLJ]

Who knows how they would assign groups. Maybe by skin color and gender.

Well that would be the only NON racist and sexist way to do it by their usual logic

[MechAg94]

At some point I would be taking the tags off of my car and putting them on the not registered car and going where I wanted to go with my not registered to me phone. Take the fines when I get caught. I imagine that phones would do the mileage reporting, kinda like the voluntary insurance apps already do.

Well, you can get 10 years for not paying a $200 one-time tax so the penalties could be pretty severe if they wanted it.

[MechAg94]

The gas tax method was/is a problem with electric vehicles.  It would need to be addressed at some point.

I'd be disappointed, but not at all surprised if the solution had privacy implications, and ultimately cost the average person more money.

They will get around to bumping up electrical use taxes before long. 

[Boomhauer]

I didn't read what's in this particular bill, but one of the "options" I read about previously, as the left's way of mitigating privacy issues, was assigning people "X" miles per year based on some different tier groups. So group X might be assigned 20K miles, while group Y is assigned 12K miles. Doesn't matter if they drive more or less, they pay on their assigned miles.

Who knows how they would assign groups. Maybe by skin color and gender.

I’m sure my blue collar white ass would be in the group to pay the most of course. We are already paying for everybody to sit the *expletive deleted*ck at home which apparently isn’t enough of a burden already.

[WLJ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ahJPxfGp4