California Raises Gas Tax, Annual Fee for BEV

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The time when gasoline tax made sense as a road funding mechanism is past. While some folks might still think it useful to discourage consumption, the link between gallons consumed and road miles/maintenance is increasingly tenuous. As is the revenue. Unfortunately they chose to extend the unfairness by a flat tax that only applies to one type of car and the revenue problem by bumping the increasingly unreliable taxation of gasoline. Though I suspect this is temporary and a more uniform approach will be needed before too long. Hopefully one that is more equitable. I don't mind paying my fair share. The operative word being "fair".
 
California has been trialing a pay by the mile road tax, using various methods to measure that. I was going to sign up for it, but got in too late after they had stopped allowing people to have their odometers measured at the start and at intervals. Most of the other methods involved some type of electronic monitoring, which I'm not comfortable with. The trial has now ended: here's some excerpts from the most recent email I got from them:

We are less than a month away from reaching the end of the pilot on March 31, 2017! As we get closer to our destination, we’d like to let you know of some next steps to stay in the know regarding the pilot results.

Focus Groups

The Road Charge Program will be holding five focus groups throughout the state in the month of March to ask selected participants about their overall pilot experience. We are committed to continually hearing feedback from our participants and the information gathered from focus groups will help inform our final report to the Legislature.

After the conclusion of the pilot, the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) will compile a final findings report for the Legislature, the California Transportation Commission, and the Road Charge Technical Advisory Committee that will be submitted in June 2017.

This report will include information about the final pilot results, public acceptance, and will be followed up by recommendations from the CTC to the Legislature.

Vehicle Miles Traveled

Below is the total number of miles participants have driven throughout the pilot, as of February 2017:

27,205,255.

Upcoming Public Meetings

The next Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) public meeting will take place in Sacramento, CA on April 21, 2017. For past TAC meeting information, click here.

We will continue to reach out to you with status updates on the final report and the next steps taken after the pilot concludes. The next pilot program update will be sent in April of 2017. We truly value your continued interest in the California Road Charge Pilot Program! We hope you will continue to stay engaged with road charge in California.

Thank you for coming along with us for the ride!

Sincerely,
California Road Charge Pilot Program Team

Here's their home page: http://www.dot.ca.gov/road_charge/
 
California's problem isn't a lack of revenue to maintain the roads, but the legislature has kept funneling money away from road repairs to other projects. A big chunk of these taxes go into the general fund directly, and there's been two different constitutional amendments to make sure gas tax money could only be used on roads, both of which they managed to find ways around.

This is the same thing now, they'll figure out ways to move the money from roads to the general fund or to simply figure out a way to deem the funds as being transportation related, regardless of how specious that link is.
 
Nubo said:
The time when gasoline tax made sense as a road funding mechanism is past.
The operative word being "fair".

Nah, gas tax is the most efficient way of collecting road tax, peg its percentage to the road budget and assumed consumption
(which varies less than you think)
The only exception is large over 10k lb trucks and commercial vehicles which are the only vehicles that damage roads and they already have fee structure s that could be modified.

Less than 1% is lost to administering the gas taxes. (Similar case with sales tax)

When collecting fees; Around half is lost to admin, (like license fees)only half is value add rest is lost, fees for smog is even worse. (Some smog fee programs don't break even). And yes public record is that government fee programs are very inefficient, so if you figure doubling the tax to charge everybody more, while tossing half in the garbage is more fair have at her.

So if we want to remove gas tax, we will have to double collections just to break even to current collection levels.

Good reason to eliminate all fees on private cars and just bungle the loss into the "energy" tax, we would be way ahead in the long run even without increasing revenue.

Heck this is even ignoring the massive waste, massive budget overages and poor construction techniques used in some areas
 
rmay635703 said:
Nubo said:
The time when gasoline tax made sense as a road funding mechanism is past.
The operative word being "fair".

Nah, gas tax is the most efficient way of collecting road tax, peg its percentage to the road budget and assumed consumption
(which varies less than you think)
The only exception is large over 10k lb trucks and commercial vehicles which are the only vehicles that damage roads and they already have fee structure s that could be modified.

Less than 1% is lost to administering the gas taxes. (Similar case with sales tax)

When collecting fees; Around half is lost to admin, (like license fees)only half is value add rest is lost, fees for smog is even worse. (Some smog fee programs don't break even). And yes public record is that government fee programs are very inefficient, so if you figure doubling the tax to charge everybody more, while tossing half in the garbage is more fair have at her.

So if we want to remove gas tax, we will have to double collections just to break even to current collection levels.

Good reason to eliminate all fees on private cars and just bungle the loss into the "energy" tax, we would be way ahead in the long run even without increasing revenue.

Heck this is even ignoring the massive waste, massive budget overages and poor construction techniques used in some areas

General taxes are already collected. If we fund roads from general revenue then there's no cumulative inefficiency.
 
DarthPuppy said:
The road repairs is just the bait to get it passed. If I understand it correctly, the only true restrictions on the spending is that it be for 'transportation projects', which means the funds will likely be siphoned off to pay for his high speed train when Trump cancels the Federal funding. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for our roads to get better.

And now there is discussion about diverting at least $15 million of the new tax money towards non-transportation projects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrk9BNqQ8TQ
 
RonDawg said:
DarthPuppy said:
The road repairs is just the bait to get it passed. If I understand it correctly, the only true restrictions on the spending is that it be for 'transportation projects', which means the funds will likely be siphoned off to pay for his high speed train when Trump cancels the Federal funding. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for our roads to get better.

And now there is discussion about diverting at least $15 million of the new tax money towards non-transportation projects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrk9BNqQ8TQ

That 15 mill is almost double what the EV road tax will collected
 
Got an email from the California Road Charge Pilot Program. Major points:

We Did It! We have reached the end of the live pilot demonstration and will now be working on compiling the pilot results into a final report. . . .

Total Miles Driven

Here is the total number of miles driven by participants throughout the pilot: 37,258,866.

Final Report

Caltrans and the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) are currently compiling a final findings report for the policy and fiscal committees of the California Legislature, the California Transportation Commission (CTC), and the Road Charge Technical Advisory Committee scheduled to be released in July 2017.

This report will include information about the final pilot results and participant feedback. Once the final report is completed, it will be publically accessible on our program website!

In addition, the final report will be followed up by road charge recommendations from the CTC to the California Legislature no later than December 2017. . . .

Upcoming Public Meetings

The next Road Charge Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) public meeting will take place in San Diego, CA on May 19, 2017. Visit the California Transportation Commission website for additional meeting details. . . .
I'll post here when the final report's available.
 
Via GCC:
California Governor signs $52B fuel tax and vehicle fee bill for transportation infrastructure; $100 ZEV fee
30 April 2017
California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. signed into law SB1, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017. The bill will raise $52.4 billion over the next decade through an increase in fuel taxes and vehicle fees—including on zero emission vehicles (ZEVs)—to fix roads, freeways and bridges in communities across California and put more dollars toward transit and safety.

The package is funded in the following ways:

  • $7.3 billion by increasing diesel excise tax 20 cents (currently $0.13) on 1 November 2017.

    $3.5 billion by increasing diesel sales tax to 5.75% on 1 November 2017.

    $24.4 billion by increasing gasoline excise tax 12 cents (currently $0.30) on 1 November 2017.

    $16.3 billion from an annual transportation improvement fee based on a vehicle’s value starting 1 January 2018

    $200 million from an annual $100 Zero Emission Vehicle fee starting 1 July 2020.

    $706 million in General Fund loan repayments.
Accountability provisions direct the funds to transportation only. . . .
Details of where the money would go are in the article.
 
Via GCC:
California Assemblyman files ballot initiative to repeal California gas tax increase
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/05/20170505-allen.html

California Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) filed ballot initiative to repeal the recently signed $52 billion gas tax (earlier post) and move it to a vote in 2018. . . .

he ballot initiative would repeal the recently enacted SB 1 in its entirety. Under California law, the Attorney General has 65 days to write a title and summary of the initiative for the November 2018 ballot, and the initiative’s proponents have 150 days to gather 365,880 valid California signatures to qualify the repeal for the November 2018 ballot.
 
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