Friday, February 20, 2009

What is the problem with taxing people by miles driven?

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-lahood-vehicle-mileage-tax,0,6754105,print.story

Simple. If you replace gas taxes with "mileage taxes", then you remove the incentive to buy fuel-efficient vehicles. Thus, deepening our dependence on foreign oil. And you penalize companies who relocate from major cities to other parts of the country, thus encouraging them NOT to move and not to bring jobs to economically-depressed areas.

Always think of the unintended consequences of new ideas.

1 comment:

CRCHAIR said...

Also, don't think that this is an "either/or " argument. In most cases, state governments want to add mileage taxes on top of gasoline taxes. So in most cases, you pay more taxes than before.