Annual "Hybrid tax" goes into effect in Virginia

[Lonestar]

$64 a year


Long story short, hybrid owners are expected to pay an annual tax because they use less gas, even though:

• The tax isn't applied to conventional high mileage cars like, say VW Rabbits
• Hybrid vehicles tend to cost substantially more than their conventional counterparts, so much more in state income tax
• Hybrid vehicles tend to be smaller, and as a result do much less damage to the road then conventional vehicles.

Seriously, this is all about those ****ers in Richmond sticking it to the damnyankees in Nothern Virginia while driving back to their ****ty home districts in their bigass pickups.

[DinoDoc]

Someone owns a Prius.

[Lonestar]

Someone owns a Prius.

Ford Fusion, actually.

[Wezil]

It reminds me of our power provider upping rates because people were conserving power and this was cutting into profits.

Damned if you do...

[Lorizael]

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

[Dr Strangelove]

Hey! They forgot about electric vehicles! Double tax for them I say.

[snoopy369]

I say we add a new amendment to the constitution. "Laws passed must make some ****ing sense."

[Sava]

wtf?

This sounds like something I would read in The Onion.

[rah]

They're just looking towards the future. And as always they're doing it like dumb asses.
But eventually they're going to have to figure out a way to fund highways other than using taxes on gas.

[snoopy369]

Indeed - the core reasoning here (some part of the 'gas tax' is intended to be a 'road use tax', and hybrids pay less than their fair share of that) is sound. It's just a dumb result. How about, remove the 'road use tax' element, charge ALL car owners that, and move on? That's like Chicago's city sticker or the license plate fee- just up that for everyone $100 and drop half a cent of gas tax.

Btw, some of your arguments in the OP are fallacious. No, hybrids are not necessarily lighter than nonhybrids; and even to the extent that they are, it's not a lot, and not enough to really reduce road wear all that much. There are hybrid SUVs that weigh plenty. Yeah, they tend to be on the lighter side comparatively because they're trying to be gas efficient, but there are lighter SUVs that aren't hybrids that probably are lighter than the hybrid, because those batteries are ****ing heavy. The argument about taxing light/efficient nonhybrids probably makes a bit more sense, but that's more an example of the road use tax component being silly in the first place. How about charge cars by class, so economy/SUV/whatever, then times mileage per year... that is much simpler

[Lonestar]

Btw, some of your arguments in the OP are fallacious. No, hybrids are not necessarily lighter than nonhybrids;

If you re-read my OP, you'll see that I said they tend to be.

There are far , far more hybrids that are around the size of Priuses and medium sedans than Tahoes and Escapes.

In fact, Priuses, all by themselves, take up half the numbers of hybrid vehicles in the US

[regexcellent]

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

[DinoDoc]

I thought the tax was about punishing self-righteous Democratic voters myself.

[Ben Kenobi]

I love the Pious tax. It's also progressive taxation because a Pious is expensive. Taxing wealthy liberals. We all know they love targetting 'SUVs' with various laws.

[regexcellent]

I thought the tax was about punishing self-righteous Democratic voters myself.

Even better