I wasnt going to post this but then i saw the post about "mileage tax?? "
if you guys still think it cant/wont happen this time you are kidding yourselves
What is different now, which i think is more to the point is that we have never seen economic conditions like we have seen in recent months. Our government is desperate to do whatever they can to generate revenue. Everyone and everything is on table. Like this little idea came across my desk the other day. It has been rumored that there is a draft bill being considered right now that will impose a licensing fee on the "private" owner of any vehicle over 15 years. Basically it states that unless the car is taken out of service (tags and title will not be renewed) the owner of record will have a usage fee of $150.00 per year imposed. Anything 25 years or older will have a $300.00 per year usage fee imposed. The first restriction (15) is under review because, it is being argued that 15 to 25 year old cars do not meet clean air standards. Which to me means you have to buy the carbon credits. The second (25) is being considered because it is argued that cars 25 years and older do not meet clean air or (safety standards). this part was especially interesting because not only do they not meet safety standards but that they also pose undue risk to the motoring public at large - so your insurance goes up and dont forget they put the children at risk . You can argue the merits of either all day. Im saying it doesnt have to make sense for the feds to do it. If they mandate the states to do it, they will. So here it is , you can sit back and think nothing like this will ever happen and jump out of your chair when it does (reactive) or you can be (proactive) and get out ahead of this silly crap.
Get involved and try to do whatever you can to put a stop to it before it does.
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To me, charging those with cars 15 years old doesn't do much more then tax the working poor. Most people who can afford new cars, typically will buy them. Those who depend on more affordable transportation, typically don't have the means to purchase a newer car to burn up driving to work. If you aren't working, you probably aren't putting many miles on your old beater, as you probably can't afford to go and do much.
Classic cars owners tend to put very few miles on their pride and joy and typically won't let out the emissions of a guy driving a brand new hybrid everyday, and racking up 200,000 miles over a couple of years.
I guess the only fair way to do it, would be a ratio based on the miles driven each year, divided by your vehicles emission rating, and then multiplied by a given tax rate. Sounds like a pain in the ass to me.
What they need to do, is continue to pass more and more stringent emissions standards for all new cars being made. The original Hemi cars got something like 10 miles to gallon. The new SRT gets twice that or better. I predict that our engineers will someday be able to build 50 mile per gallon Hemi cars, and people will still want to buy them.
