Saturday, July 02, 2005
Tracking Tax
As I noted in the March newsletter, Oregon is considering implementing a mileage tax to replace a tax on gas bought at the pump. They’ve gone one step further to making this happen.
Starting this Fall, 20 volunteers will have “on-board mileage-counting equipment” installed in their cars to track how far they drive. By Spring, the government hopes to increase the sample size to 280. Volunteers will download data from their onboard computers at specially equipped service stations. They will not have to pay any gas tax during the trial…but instead will be charged 1.2cents per mile they drive.
There is an issue about tracking when the car crosses state lines – into those old-fashioned states that still tax gas purchases – which is being used to justify a GPS component to the “equipment”. And variable pricing for rush hour travel in certain zones is being discussed.
Let’s hope those refinements make a lot of potentially invasive information colection worthwhile. Otherwise, a pretty reasonable system could be built upon simply checking the odometer which is already installed in all cars everywhere… Is this a case of technology infatuation winning out over need?
Starting this Fall, 20 volunteers will have “on-board mileage-counting equipment” installed in their cars to track how far they drive. By Spring, the government hopes to increase the sample size to 280. Volunteers will download data from their onboard computers at specially equipped service stations. They will not have to pay any gas tax during the trial…but instead will be charged 1.2cents per mile they drive.
There is an issue about tracking when the car crosses state lines – into those old-fashioned states that still tax gas purchases – which is being used to justify a GPS component to the “equipment”. And variable pricing for rush hour travel in certain zones is being discussed.
Let’s hope those refinements make a lot of potentially invasive information colection worthwhile. Otherwise, a pretty reasonable system could be built upon simply checking the odometer which is already installed in all cars everywhere… Is this a case of technology infatuation winning out over need?
# posted by AmandaWelsh @ 12:41 PM 
