Alternative to Carbon Tax?

[mikester]

EV tax credits are widespread – but extra fees are just as common

Many countries are trying to nudge drivers to adopt electric vehicles. Yet they're also levying extra taxes on them. What's going on?

www.bbc.com

One of my biggest criticisms about the carbon tax is that it's only good for the lazy politicians because they can pretend they are doing something with regards to climate change but in reality we are just getting milked by another sucker tax. I am interested in being more conservative with my energy consumption and want to reduce waste. The problem is I can't buy more energy efficient products here in southern Ontario.

If we really want to change consumer behaviour then associate the tax with the activity. Example? Charge an annual road tax based on the weight of your vehicle.

If you want to drive a 5,000-lb EV/HEV car then great, $0.10/lb x 5000lbs = $500/year base road tax
If you want to drive a 10,000lb ICE pickup truck/SUV then $0.20/lb x 10000 = $2,000/year base road tax

If you want 4WD then add another $0.025/lb road tax penalty for less efficient vehicle.
If you are driving the highest efficiency vehicle (call it the "standard") for your year of manufacture then you only pay the base road tax. If you drive a gas guzzler or electron waster then your base road tax goes up by the amount of inefficiency compared to the "standard".

Example: currently the most fuel efficient ICE car is a Prius HEV at 4.8L/100km and weighs 3285 lbs. If you decide to buy a Toyota Crown Platinum HEV it consumes 8.1L/100km and weighs 4343 lbs. The Crown consumes 1.6875 more fuel therefore you pay 1.6875 x $0.10/lb = $0.16875/lb

Prius road tax $0.10/lb x 3285 lbs = $328.50 / year road tax
Crown Platinum $0.16875 x 4343 lbs = $732.81 / year road tax

If you feel you are extra important and want an SUV then compare to:
BMW X5 SUV ICE 4998 lbs x $0.20 x (9.4/4.8 fuel efficiency penalty) = 4998 x ($0.20x1.958) = $1957.55/year road tax

Put the annual road tax cost right beside the manufacturer's engine HP claims. If you think you need 375HP and 5000lbs to move your skinny little butt down the road as your daily commuter vehicle to drive from the burbs then you can afford $1957.55 road tax.

My reasoning is this: the larger and heavier the vehicle is, the less efficient it is to push down the road. Heavier vehicles put more wear and tear on our infrastructure. The idea of the energy waster penalty is to stop the greenwashing done by manufacturers. I'm looking at you EV fanboys, there should be no free ride in your monstrous 4WD SUV EVs.

My 1994 GMC 3/4 ton long box extended cab had a 200HP turbo diesel in it and towed 10,000lbs. I don't understand why people NEED 375HP in a 4WD glorified minivan SUV to drive in the burbs as a daily commuter vehicle. If that's important to you then you can afford to road tax.

 

[GeoHorn]

I have a few heavy vehicles which are rarely used..if ever…on public roads. Why would/should I pay a road tax on something which rarely is used? Most fuel taxes (such as gasoline/diesel) are taxed per the quantity purchased….which equates to the road-useage…. and non-road vehicles are allowed to use off-road fuel.

??

 

[hagrid]

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been, and continues to conduct yearly rectal upper colon examinations based upon GVWR.

You weigh more? Prepare for full penetration.

 

[skeets]

In Pa all you have to do is follow the money!

 

[GreensvilleJay]

yeah, 'carbon tax'..... you pay up front,guv solves the 'carbon problem', then send you a fat cheque 4 times a year......
hmmmm.. anyone see a problem with that ?

sadly NONE of the gas pumps have the sticker on them SHOWING the TAXES on what we buy ! That should be a law.... it's not even on the receipt. NatGAS supplier does show it though....yup for every $1 I spend on NAT gas, I pay $1 'carbon tax'.

 

[The Evil Twin]

I have a few heavy vehicles which are rarely used..if ever…on public roads. Why would/should I pay a road tax on something which rarely is used? Most fuel taxes (such as gasoline/diesel) are taxed per the quantity purchased….which equates to the road-useage…. and non-road vehicles are allowed to use off-road fuel.

??

Bingo. I have a diesel 1 ton that doesn't see a lot of use. Maybe 10k miles a year. Half of that is not even in my home state because it's used to pull the toy hauler. My commuter car does most of the in state travel.

 

[mikester]

yeah, 'carbon tax'..... you pay up front,guv solves the 'carbon problem', then send you a fat cheque 4 times a year......
hmmmm.. anyone see a problem with that ?

sadly NONE of the gas pumps have the sticker on them SHOWING the TAXES on what we buy ! That should be a law.... it's not even on the receipt. NatGAS supplier does show it though....yup for every $1 I spend on NAT gas, I pay $1 'carbon tax'.

I've spent well north of $2K on carbon tax so far on the farm and a $300 rebate does poop all. Where's the big fat cheque?

Maybe I'd get more rebate than money I spent on carbon tax if I was living in a squat eating celery and carrot sticks down in Windsor. The carbon tax does NOTHING about getting me products here that are actually "energy efficient". Where are the building construction codes when it comes to these huge, crap quality, poorly insulated, low density housing developments going up in a hurry on prime farm land?

 

[Runs With Scissors]

The biggest problem with a "carbon tax" is the fact that people actually believe there is a "carbon problem" in the first place.

Just like the belief that oil is made from a "finite amount" of "dead dinosaurs" and that we could actually run out of it.

Just like any other tax, it's simply a gimmick/propaganda that .gov uses to pick our pockets even more than they do already.

 

[mikester]

The biggest problem with a "carbon tax" is the fact that people actually believe there is a "carbon problem" in the first place.

Just like the belief that oil is made from a "finite amount" of "dead dinosaurs" and that we could actually run out of it.

Just like any other tax, it's simply a gimmick/propaganda that .gov uses to pick our pockets even more than they do already.

Some people think that they should be able to take their dog for a walk and let them sh*t where they please and not clean up after their pets.

Like I said in my initial post, politicians love the carbon tax because they don't have to make laws or enforce anything to make things "better". Their misbelief is that efficient free markets will sort things out. In reality carbon taxes don't solve the problem that North Americans only want to buy oversized, overweight SUV minivans as their prime mover. Putting an EV motor and batteries in a SUV/Minivan makes about as much sense as spritzing a little Lysol in the air after your Great Dane or St.Bernard takes a dump in the park instead of cleaning up after it.

My Road Tax suggestion is just a way to make people actually pay for the amount of dog cr@p they produce and roll that cash collected into maintaining our infrastructure. I don't care about how many St.Bernards you have in your back yard, that's your business.

 

[johnjk]

yeah, 'carbon tax'..... you pay up front,guv solves the 'carbon problem', then send you a fat cheque 4 times a year......
hmmmm.. anyone see a problem with that ?

sadly NONE of the gas pumps have the sticker on them SHOWING the TAXES on what we buy ! That should be a law.... it's not even on the receipt. NatGAS supplier does show it though....yup for every $1 I spend on NAT gas, I pay $1 'carbon tax'.

All the pumps in OH break down the OH and National tax we pay per gallon of fuel. Now they don’t say what they fund other than road upkeep and political pet projects.

 

[lugbolt]

as said previously ev's don't buy gas so they don't pay road tax.

In some states that's changing. They're implementing pay by the mile tax. In other words, they want to know how much you drove, and they'll send you a bill. There are a lot of questions about this. How do they know? If GPS based, device added to the vehicle, then that in itself brings up the question of privacy. What else are they watching, and what kind of market does this information get to? Advertising is a huge industry...I live not too far from one of the biggest information centers in the USA, information that is gathered passes into this place, then processed and sold to other places. Remember that. Also on pay by the mile, it's real easy to get around it. "Ododmeter doesn't work". Of if GPS, ain't terribly hard to make that go away too. I'm sure our leaders will find ways to penalize people regardless however, maybe make the penalty of disabling tracking equipment mandatory jail time and $35,000 fine or something...yet a drunk driver gets a much lesser penalty.

 

[mikester]

Unfortunately I see GPS+cellular black boxes replacing our license plates in my lifetime and getting billed by the mile/km.

 

[The Evil Twin]

as said previously ev's don't buy gas so they don't pay road tax.

In some states that's changing. They're implementing pay by the mile tax. In other words, they want to know how much you drove, and they'll send you a bill. There are a lot of questions about this. How do they know? If GPS based, device added to the vehicle, then that in itself brings up the question of privacy. What else are they watching, and what kind of market does this information get to? Advertising is a huge industry...I live not too far from one of the biggest information centers in the USA, information that is gathered passes into this place, then processed and sold to other places. Remember that. Also on pay by the mile, it's real easy to get around it. "Ododmeter doesn't work". Of if GPS, ain't terribly hard to make that go away too. I'm sure our leaders will find ways to penalize people regardless however, maybe make the penalty of disabling tracking equipment mandatory jail time and $35,000 fine or something...yet a drunk driver gets a much lesser penalty.

We actually have that option here. A little black box gets plugged into the OBD2 port of the car. We considered that because we have a car that rarely gets used. I was against it and my wife didn't really understand why. Then I showed her the article that revealed GM Onstar was reporting people's driving habits to the insurance company secret database. She understood pretty quickly why I won't let the gubberment in my car or home.

 

[hagrid]

In some states that's changing. They're implementing pay by the mile tax. In other words, they want to know how much you drove, and they'll send you a bill. There are a lot of questions about this. How do they know?

T'would be easy peasy lemon squeazy in PA.

Annual safety inspections are a requirement. Your odometer reading is already being written on the inspection stickers.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

It's not just GM Onstar.... that little black box the insurance gives you to 'save you 10-25%' on insurance is really a 'dataminer' that they then,legally , sell the data to anyone that will pay for it. That is in the 'Terms of Use' you click to sign off on......
One report said the car companies make more off YOUR data than the profit from the sale of it to you.
To be fair though, if you use it, you need to pay for it. No way EVs should NOT be paying their 'fair share' for using the roads.

BTW the carbon tax for car gas in Ontario is about 15c/l. One site says 30% of the btm line price is taxes. So $1.50/l means 41 worth of gas, 50 cents to the guvs....
Course that'll all change BIG TIME come April 1st here.....

I don't mind paying my share of taxes IF 'they' did something good with MY money. even the Idiot said he didn't KNOW what was being done with the carbon taxes he collected.

 

[fried1765]

I've spent well north of $2K on carbon tax so far on the farm and a $300 rebate does poop all. Where's the big fat cheque?

Maybe I'd get more rebate than money I spent on carbon tax if I was living in a squat eating celery and carrot sticks down in Windsor. The carbon tax does NOTHING about getting me products here that are actually "energy efficient". Where are the building construction codes when it comes to these huge, crap quality, poorly insulated, low density housing developments going up in a hurry on prime farm land?

Even the Canadian gov't NEEDS to provide housing for immigrants!

 

[GreensvilleJay]

It's always talk about 'housing' , NOTHING ever gets said about more EMS, docs, hospitals, shops, cops, dare I say JOBS ???
Housing is EASY to solve.... repurpose the millions of OT Seacans taking up valuable land that SHOULD be used for housing.

 

[GeoHorn]

It's always talk about 'housing' , NOTHING ever gets said about more EMS, docs, hospitals, shops, cops, dare I say JOBS ???
Housing is EASY to solve.... repurpose the millions of OT Seacans taking up valuable land that SHOULD be used for housing.

The four-walls of steel of that “seacan”….. require quite a bit of expensive modification to make it habitable. It would be cheaper and more habitable to use recyclable materials to construct new…and would provide a job for those needful.…(giving a use for all the waste-plastic and cellulose in landfills and oceans). Habitat for Humanity needs a super-low-cost mass-production twin to resolve the issue. (imo)

 

[Tarmy]

They have been trying to get a VMT (vehicle miles traveled) tax for years out here. There are all kinds of ways to “adjust” that to generate money and invade privacy all at the same time.

Congestion pricing, speeding/parking fees/tickets, miles traveled, weight classes, annual use fees. They will expand this to include (which now is a requirement on all new cars here soon) remote engine shut off. This was snuck into that Infrastructure stimulus bill last year. No pay, no drive. I am sure nothing nefarious will ever come of the data collected or if you visit a gun range/store or….

 

[GreensvilleJay]

That 'remote engine shutoff' doesn't seem to work very well, 100s of cars stolen every month, trucked to Port of Montreal, shipped overseas...