EV tax in California... 30 cents per mile. Pilot program underway?

[FlyingClayDisk]

As much as I would love to say this problem is unique to California, it isn't; every State (well, most) have their grubby mitts in the taxpayer's pocket.

The level of graft in both State and federal government(s) is staggering, just astonishing!  If even $0.40 cents of every taxpayer dollar went toward actually funding what it was earmarked to fund, this country would be utopia.  But alas, it's not even close.  I work with federal, State and municipal money every day and I see it first hand.  People have this image in their minds that expenditures are tightly controlled, and some will even attempt to cite examples.  But what most of these people fail to realize is that the money they are citing is actually 'recycled' money in the form of loans, often bonds, which are essentially taxpayer money which has been 'embezzled/extorted' by politicians down to zero, and then used as collateral to borrow that same money back in the form of municipal and other types of bonding or funding 'instruments'.  The political machine wastes all the money first, and then turns around and borrows that same money back again (at added expense to the taxpayer...in the form of facility charges and excise taxes (among others)).  Then, these same people go all 'accountant' when questioned about their expenditures and use examples of how they tightly "controlled" this recycled money all while patting themselves on the back for doing a great job!  Bullshit!  You get ripped off not once, not twice, but three or more times.

In a nutshell taxpayers should consider themselves lucky because it's not about taking the glass shards out of the vaseline, no, you don't get any vaseline at all!!  Nor do you get a kiss afterwards!  Just bend over!

[Byrd]

Just a "head's up" for anyone interested in the manner of governance which is becoming more visible in our nation... let's look at a short video about California's 'direction' in managing taxes

California has proposed a new tax for Electric Vehicle owners... a $0.30 tax per mile travelled.

Shocker?  Or not?

(pardon the short video link not displaying)
[Video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h6d-qd2MrJA]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/h6d-qd2MrJA

I saw this and figured that at least some of us would like to discuss it.

It's always critical to go to original sources when looking at this kind of thing -- turns out that wherever your information is from, they inflated the cost ten times over what's being proposed (three cents per mile, or around $100 per year.)

So here's a blog post on it News: tax on electric vehicles but a deeper dig shows that this is not new -- in fact, there's a program like this in Indiana and Hawaii.  Indiana's bill, from 2023 (link to the actual bill) has a charge for any vehicle not running on gas or diesel (so.. coal, biogas, etc.)

What do I think of it personally?  I'm in favor of it.  Roadways everywhere are maintained by the government -- local, state, and national.  Materials and labor and machines to build new roads and to repair older roads aren't free and don't come from the Road Fairy.  The money has to come from somewhere.

The other option would be to make all roads into toll roads... and that's going to be both messy and undesirable.   I've traveled in Costa Rica, where roads are poorly maintained and the 'patches' to roads in the country side are done by tossing out dry cement on the hole and letting the rains and the weight of the cars do the repairing.  It leads to some peculiar results.

I'd rather not have that kind of road repair in the US.  It's okay for country roads in a poorer nation, but if you hit one of those repair jobs in a big SUV going 80 mph (we drive an SUV and were doing 80 (along with everyone else on the road) on the major highways last time I took a trip), it would not be a good thing.

[Lynyrd Skynyrd]

I think he meant as far as material possessions, not online presence.

That's right. I was contrasting my life to the woman posting that she is "happy to own nothing and lease the appearance of status". I could lease a new Cadillac, but never would. My little Nissan is 12 years old. I feel a little posh right now, because I'm wearing a new T shirt.

[Maxmars]

It's always critical to go to original sources when looking at this kind of thing -- turns out that wherever your information is from, they inflated the cost ten times over what's being proposed (three cents per mile, or around $100 per year.)

So here's a blog post on it News: tax on electric vehicles but a deeper dig shows that this is not new -- in fact, there's a program like this in Indiana and Hawaii.  Indiana's bill, from 2023 (link to the actual bill) has a charge for any vehicle not running on gas or diesel (so.. coal, biogas, etc.)

What do I think of it personally?  I'm in favor of it.  Roadways everywhere are maintained by the government -- local, state, and national.  Materials and labor and machines to build new roads and to repair older roads aren't free and don't come from the Road Fairy.  The money has to come from somewhere.

The other option would be to make all roads into toll roads... and that's going to be both messy and undesirable.   I've traveled in Costa Rica, where roads are poorly maintained and the 'patches' to roads in the country side are done by tossing out dry cement on the hole and letting the rains and the weight of the cars do the repairing.  It leads to some peculiar results.

I'd rather not have that kind of road repair in the US.  It's okay for country roads in a poorer nation, but if you hit one of those repair jobs in a big SUV going 80 mph (we drive an SUV and were doing 80 (along with everyone else on the road) on the major highways last time I took a trip), it would not be a good thing.

Thank you once, and thank you twice! 

Inflating the account by an order of magnitude tells me almost everything I need to know about the source.

I would never impinge on your opinion, but I am very skeptical of the idea that "road maintenance" costs are properly evaluated when it comes to budgeting...

The maintenance costs are not rendered into taxes on a year to year basis...  state government have been "paying for road maintenance" since forever... asking for increased billions and billions feels to me like someone in the world of contracts and contract management are making huge financial gains that have nothing directly to do with "road maintenance."

But that's just me being cynical, I suppose. 

[Byrd]

Thank you once, and thank you twice! 

Inflating the account by an order of magnitude tells me almost everything I need to know about the source.

I would never impinge on your opinion, but I am very skeptical of the idea that "road maintenance" costs are properly evaluated when it comes to budgeting...

The maintenance costs are not rendered into taxes on a year to year basis...  state government have been "paying for road maintenance" since forever... asking for increased billions and billions feels to me like someone in the world of contracts and contract management are making huge financial gains that have nothing directly to do with "road maintenance."

But that's just me being cynical, I suppose. 

I can understand cynicism... I'm coming from an unusual viewpoint since I was a programmer and computer support specialist for a city government.  I've seen the frustration with "why can't you fix the roads" on a personal basis -- and I've seen the actual spreadsheets of road inventory and the economic decisions that lead to the answer to "what roads do we fix right now?"

Municipal salaries aren't that high, as a rule.  Decent, yes, and I'm grateful for my retirement plan from the City.   Money gets bled from bad decisions, bad materials from contractors and a lot of things but in general this is no worse than any other business.

Weird things cause road problems, including the landscape.  Here in Texas we've got "black clay", which causes huge foundation problems and isn't kind to roads, sidewalks, or house foundations.

Ah... budgets are interesting.  I haven't looked at my city's budget in many years, but I come from an experience where I can understand what's going on in government and how things work as an insider (who was kind of an outsider, because geeks are considered just... weird.)