Annual "Hybrid tax" goes into effect in Virginia

[Lonestar]

Higher usage and so higher costs = "punishment" according to Ben.

[Ben Kenobi]

You gonna retract?

Pious purchase prices are lower because of grants from the administration to Toyota. In essence a significant portion of your Pious has already been funded by everyone in the United States.

just fine with medium sedans. I grew up in one of those(two parents, 3 kids). The idea that you "need" a large SUV or Truck to cart around a couple of kids is basically a false one.

And you're going to punish families that have 4 children because that's a 'bad choice'?

So in your mind commute time doesn't factor into home location?

Commute time isn't why folks live in Fairfax. Commute time to DC is about the same from MD.

Incidentally, it is generally cheaper to live in MD then in Virginia, because the crime is so relatively bad and the commute sucks.

Lets see what our other Fairfax residents have to say. MD is more expensive because of taxes.

[Ben Kenobi]

Gas guzzling = punishing choices they don't like in the Beniverse

Are you saying Rich liberals don't try to devise laws that are directed at SUVs? Goose Gander. You have a perfectly good state to your North and East.

[snoopy369]

Are hybrid owners underpaying relative to the damage they do to the roads?

Most hybrids sold in the US are small and medium sedans, as I linked to earlier. Smaller vehicles put much less wear and tear on the roads than larger ones.

Not that much less. What's the difference between your Ford Fusion and a regular Ford Fusion? About 20 pounds of battery, and much better gas mileage; same wear and tear, but the Fusion Hybrid pays way lower gas taxes. That's all fine and good - I have no problem with rewarding a Hybrid for saving the environment, and that's what some (not as much as should be) of the gas tax is for. But some of it's paying for that road wear.

Of course this is a dumb solution because it looks like it's penalizing you; the right solution is to just remove the road wear tax and charge everyone the same (or based on class of vehicle) for the road wear tax.

[rah]

Are hybrid owners underpaying relative to the damage they do to the roads?

Some of those gas taxes are also used for new roads. Hybrid owners benefit equally (in theory) from new roads.

[Sava]

where we are going, we don't need roads

[Imran Siddiqui]

Are you saying Rich liberals don't try to devise laws that are directed at SUVs? Goose Gander. You have a perfectly good state to your North and East.

I don't know what North Carolina has to do with anything, but laws are directed as gas guzzling vehicles, whether they be SUVs, Trucks, etc. I would ask you to educate yourself, but I know you won't, so why bother?

[Sava]

Rich Liberals was my buddy in college

[Colon™]

Should have been called the Top Gear tax.

[Tuberski]

This tax makes a ton of sense. Your gas tax pays for the road use, not environmental harm. Because actually taxing people based on how many miles they drive would be complicated as hell, we tax people based on how much gas they use as an approximation. Hybrid owners get out of paying for roads by using less gas and paying less in gas taxes.

I wish New York had as smart a legislature as Virginia's, and taxed hybrids instead of ****ing soda bottles

Complicated as hell? Really?

Here in Texas they write down your odometer reading every year during the safety inspection. Simple subtraction give you the miles used. Well, maybe that is complicated for government workers...

ACK!

[DinoDoc]

I thought I gave a good reason for the tax, Sava.

DD never has any arguments. He just offers subpar trolls with occasionally funny zingers.

Is this thread meant for arguments? I thought it was a sounding board for Lonestar to vent about the injustice of the government of the government increasing his taxes. Which while I appreciate the irony, gets old real fast. However if you want an argument, Lonestar's error here is in assuming that the these taxes have **** all to do with the damage a car does to the road rather than serving as a convenient vehicle for the State to fund road maintenance and construction which makes his protestations that his hybrid does less damage to the road irrelevant. His time would be better spent lobbying his rep in the VA Legislature to either simply raise the gas tax in the face of declining tax receipts or to come up with a better system for the State to fund it.

[Sava]

His time would be better spent

We could all be spending our time in a better way.

[Hauldren Collider]

Lonestar likes to imagine that the state government has it in for northern Virginia when it isn't really true. Also he is wrong about our population distribution. Plenty of people live in Richmond and VA Beach.

[KrazyHorse]

Is there a term for an anti-pigovian tax? Punishing positive externalities?

The biggest negative externality from driving in northern Virginia is by far NOT carbon emissions.

[KrazyHorse]

1) gas taxes to penalize pollution
2) tolls to penalize wear & tear on the roads
3) tolls to penalize use of cars along congested roadways

This is the ideal, to be mediated by the transactions cost involved