# Arizona Bill Would Tax Electric Cars at 1.42¢ Per Mile Driven



## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Wow - talk about an unprofessional article!!!

It doesn't actually mention the tax, nor does it disclose how it calculates the "$1.42 / mile" value.

Here is another article that paints an entirely different picture on this:



> Last month Arizona Representative Steve Farley proposed HB #2257 as a way to solve this conundrum. It imposes a vehicle mileage tax on electric vehicles to the sum of $.01 per mile driven. HB 2257 also empowers the Arizona highway department to collect the tax and adopt necessary rules. The tax is also tied to economic activity so that it will go up over time as GDP increases.


So, the first article implies the tax is 142 times larger than the actual bill. The actual bill, apparently, puts the charge at a penny per mile. 

So, what is the truth? Here is the text of the Bill.

Apparently, the $1.42/mile figure is a complete fiction, repeated across several sites.

We all know that EVs will need to be taxed somehow to pay for the roads - and in truth an EV tends to weigh a bit more than it's equivalent ICE version, meaning it does more damage.

But the politics of this are getting downright silly. From both sides.


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

EV's might weigh a bit more for now... But they dont leak any oil or gas so I bet they cause less road damage.


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## EVfun (Mar 14, 2010)

News Bot said:


> Bill is similar to one being proposed in Oregon with funds used to help maintain the state's roads.


I support the idea of a per mile tax in place of the per gallon gasoline tax. However, 1 cent per mile in Arizona would be quite a penalty against EVs. The state gas tax totals 19 cents per gallon so they are taxing EVs at a 19 mpg rate. Most EVs are taking the place of high fuel economy vehicles. That is to say, if the owner didn't drive the EV he or she would most likely be driving a hybrid, VW tdi or equivalent type of vehicle. 0.5 cent per mile would be more appropriate for Arizona. 1 cent per mile would be appropriate for Washington state, where I live, because we have a 37.5 cent per gallon gas tax.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

PhantomPholly said:


> So, the first article implies the tax is 142 times larger than the actual bill. The actual bill, apparently, puts the charge at a penny per mile.


1.42¢ is not 142x 1.00¢. I'm guessing the 1.42 number came from early bill discussions and it was reduced to 1 in the final bill to simplify things.

A larger issue at stake here is the stupidity in providing incentives for something, while also providing disincentives. Why not just pass a tax on all govt subsidies? And maybe the govt could tax the govt's revenue from that tax.

The other critical issue is the collecting of these taxes. Most proposals involve sticking GPS on all EVs and using that to track, I mean tax us.

Another issue is the irrelevance of the tax in many cases. I don't know about Arizona, but in some states the gas tax (or a portion of it) goes to something not related to driving, such as education, similar to sin taxes on cigarettes.


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## Jason Lattimer (Dec 27, 2008)

The gasoline guys love to hear this but just wait. They'll come for you next.


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

I don't understand the difficulty - we have had a mileage charge on non petrol vehicles for ever
Don't need GPS
Just record the mileage at the annual inspection - here we buy miles ahead of time 

Electric cars are currently free - but it will change

Our present system kind of assumes that alternative fueled cars are diesel Landrovers but an new system charging less per mile for smaller vehicles is about to be introduced


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Many cars do not have a functional odometer. I'm guessing they're quite prone to failure as in TX you don't need one for anything over 10 years old.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

EVfun said:


> I support the idea of a per mile tax in place of the per gallon gasoline tax. However, 1 cent per mile in Arizona would be quite a penalty against EVs. The state gas tax totals 19 cents per gallon so they are taxing EVs at a 19 mpg rate. Most EVs are taking the place of high fuel economy vehicles. That is to say, if the owner didn't drive the EV he or she would most likely be driving a hybrid, VW tdi or equivalent type of vehicle. 0.5 cent per mile would be more appropriate for Arizona. 1 cent per mile would be appropriate for Washington state, where I live, because we have a 37.5 cent per gallon gas tax.


You are forgetting the Federal portion of gas taxes, which puts the total at $0.374/gallon. Here is a table of gas taxes by State. For a 10,000 mile / year commuter your road taxes would be a whopping $100 - barely enough to buy a couple of sacks of driveway repair asphalt at Home Depot.

Now admittedly the State is in this case collecting as much as State and Federal taxes combined - an issue for the State and Fed to work out. But it still leaves me curious where someone came up with $1.42 / mile and why so many "news outlets" repeated that without checking the facts...


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> 1.42¢ is not 142x 1.00¢. I'm guessing the 1.42 number came from early bill discussions and it was reduced to 1 in the final bill to simplify things.
> 
> A larger issue at stake here is the stupidity in providing incentives for something, while also providing disincentives. Why not just pass a tax on all govt subsidies? And maybe the govt could tax the govt's revenue from that tax.
> 
> ...


I couldn't agree more. While it sounds nice in theory, the level of scrutiny and auditing necessary to calculate "miles driven" just leads us further down the Big Brother road. Then, what do you do about "miles driven" in other states? Does each person in the land need to send a separate check to every State they may have crossed during the year?

A far better way to collect revenues is to simply take the gross rated weight of the vehicle squared and multiply it by some factor based on "average fleet miles driven" to calculate taxes. Why squared? Because that's what I happen to recall the results of a study on the amount of damage done to the roads - heavy vehicles do damage approximately proportional to the square of their weight for each mile driven. A big rig does hundreds of times more damage to the roads than a Honda Civic, etc., and they already have a tax system for vehicle weight in place for bigger vehicles in most States.

If we did that we could eliminate gas taxes now rather than waiting for "revenues to become a crisis" (which is always baloney anyway...).


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Many cars do not have a functional odometer. I'm guessing they're quite prone to failure as in TX you don't need one for anything over 10 years old.


Ha - more likely they were jiggered. It's been 40 years since I've seen an actual failed odometer.


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## rkarl89203 (Aug 15, 2011)

Hmm, Gov. Brewer supports this:

And she received considerable campaign contributions from OIL companies.

Hmmm....just sayin........


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

PhantomPholly said:


> Ha - more likely they were jiggered. It's been 40 years since I've seen an actual failed odometer.


You can take a look at mine anytime. I know many DIYers also have electronic ODOs, so you'd set it to whatever you want before going to pay the fee.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> You can take a look at mine anytime. I know many DIYers also have electronic ODOs, so you'd set it to whatever you want before going to pay the fee.


Like I said - jiggered. I was speaking of production vehicles.

Still, you make my point for me. A mileage based tax is an asinine, Big Brother solution. Enforcement will eat up a substantial portion of the revenues, and it's all just a sham to excuse tracking everyone's movements. Instead, a simple flat fee based on gross vehicle weight / axels / etc. would be a better solution. We're only talking about $100-300/year for most cars, which is danged reasonable for good roads. IF that's what it's used for....


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

PhantomPholly said:


> We're only talking about $100-300/year for most cars, which is danged reasonable for good roads.


That is an enormous amount of revenue for the hen house guarding fox to ignore.



PhantomPholly said:


> IF that's what it's used for....


And we know it isn't.....

My take on taxes is we have enough already and governments need to make do with what they already take from us. Which is why I will not support any tax laws that serve to further complicate or otherwise increase the burden people already have to carry (very important point with enforcement cost BTW). I could say more but I better not.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

david85 said:


> That is an enormous amount of revenue for the hen house guarding fox to ignore.


In fairness, it represents almost exactly the difference paid in taxes between gas burners and EVs. Is it fair for gas burners to subsidize EVs yet again? As I said before, I think they should immediately drop all gas taxes and go to a flat tax system based on rated gross vehicle weight squared. Simple; no audit required; no intrusion on our travels. It also has a feature for the Liberals (steep progressiveness - although this is a case where Physics justifies it) in that it automatically encourages owners not to buy more vehicle than they really need.



> And we know it isn't.....


I won't argue that. However, if it doesn't come from gas taxes where DOES the money for roads come from? I think we went through this exercise before and that road costs pretty much equaled taxes (which surprised me - although I have zero doubt costs are inflated).



> My take on taxes is we have enough already and governments need to make do with what they already take from us. Which is why I will not support any tax laws that serve to further complicate or otherwise increase the burden people already have to carry (very important point with enforcement cost BTW). I could say more but I better not.


LOL - well I agree with you 100%. Politicians create thousands of "little taxes" so that voters can't agree on how to fight them ("divide and conquer"). If I were dictator for a day, one of the ways I would tweak the Constitution would be that neither the Federal Government nor the States could have tax programs which IN TOTAL are in excess of 3 pages of double-line spaced Pica type, the pages being 8 1/2" x 11" so some bright genius doesn't get the idea of using paper the size of Arkansas.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

All I am not sure what all the controversy is about. You knew this was coming sooner or latter. It is only fair every vehicles has to pay Road Fuel Tax, EV's are no exception. It is very easy to implement as the tax will be collected each year when you have your tag renewed based on mileage.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

david85 said:


> My take on taxes is we have enough already and governments need to make do with what they already take from us.


Nice theory I agree with the principle but far from reality. Governments will never stay within their budgets and do with less, that is why we are in so much trouble.

EV's are no different from gas cars when it comes to road usage. It is only fair EV's have to pay a Road Fuel Tax to pay for the roads they use like everyone else with gas vehicles. When enough EV's hit the roads, Fuel Tax Revenues will decrease without a tax.

Here in TX where we had a major drought, and mandatory rationing was imposed and enforced on many water districts. This caused huge revenue drops because people were using less water. To compensate for the lost revenue, the water districts raised water rates to make up for the loss. Why? Because the Government will never do with less.


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## Jason Lattimer (Dec 27, 2008)

Wait until gas cars also have to pay road usage tax.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Sunking said:


> All I am not sure what all the controversy is about. You knew this was coming sooner or latter. It is only fair every vehicles has to pay Road Fuel Tax, EV's are no exception. It is very easy to implement as the tax will be collected each year when you have your tag renewed based on mileage.


The only issue I a aware of with a mileage tax is that it requires a Big-Brother like intrusiveness and auditing. That introduces inefficiency.

With a tax running around $100/yr for most cars, a weight-based tax makes a lot more sense. If you end up paying a bit more because you hardly drive, so what? It's still the cheapest way (aggregate) for the government to collect the taxes it needs for the roads, and the money saved in the audit would mean that we all come out ahead.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Jason Lattimer said:


> Wait until gas cars also have to pay road usage tax.


They already do, they pay it every time they put gas into the car, and buy tires. For passenger vehicles the fed gets $0.184/gallon, and the state as low as $0.184/gallon in Alaska, and as high as $0.64/gal in California. National average tax (fed + state) $0.654/gal for unleaded, and $0.758/gal for diesel.


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## Jason Lattimer (Dec 27, 2008)

No I what I mean is when the high mileage hybrids fail to meet the tax Burdon and the have to pay the same tax as evs


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

Jason Lattimer said:


> No I what I mean is when the high mileage hybrids fail to meet the tax Burdon and the have to pay the same tax as evs


OK I understand now. Yep it will happen, it is only fair.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Sunking said:


> Governments will never stay within their budgets and do with less, that is why we are in so much trouble.


My feeling is that somehow they will have to. 

It remains to be seen how bad situations like Greece will get before things get better. I'm not sure how much coverage there is in the american news media (haven't seen much in canada), but the situation has already begun to spread across europe. We have relatives in Spain and Romania...

I know its a pipe dream, but I still wish there was a way that we could reign in bloated government and simplify the tax system.

Phantom is dead on with his 'divide and conquer' observation. There will likely be plenty of public support (or apathy) for placing some form of road taxes on electric vehicles.

Eventually, conversions like mine will probably be illegal because I was not certified to build it.


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## Sunking (Aug 10, 2009)

david85 said:


> It remains to be seen how bad situations like Greece will get before things get better. I'm not sure how much coverage there is in the american news media (haven't seen much in canada), but the situation has already begun to spread across europe. We have relatives in Spain and Romania...


That is called a collapse, any Greece Government is no longer in control, the creditors financing the bailout are now in control and will make the changes. The ywill start by cutting pension and entitlement programs. That is exactly where the USA is heading. It is what our current Executive Administration Government wants and has planned to do.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

There's nothing wrong with a road tax on EVs...but it should wait until it matters. For now we are trying to encourage EV use. Some day, when EVs become a significant portion of the population, say 5-10%, then the gas tax can be removed and a flat annual rate slapped on everyone based on weight and typical usage.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

Sunking said:


> That is called a collapse, any Greece Government is no longer in control, the creditors financing the bailout are now in control and will make the changes. The ywill start by cutting pension and entitlement programs. That is exactly where the USA is heading. It is what our current Executive Administration Government wants and has planned to do.


I guess the point I'm trying to make is we have more important things to worry about than this. EVs are not putting any measurable dent in the bottom line of governments right now. The things that are having an impact have nothing to do with electric cars.

I agree we should pay our fair share when the time comes but enforcement costs of this would make it hard to pull any sort of revenue from this type of model.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

david85 said:


> I guess the point I'm trying to make is we have more important things to worry about than this. EVs are not putting any measurable dent in the bottom line of governments right now. The things that are having an impact have nothing to do with electric cars.


Don't you realize EVs will destroy America as we know it? All those jobs we just bailed out, gone. All those service men and fatty contractors running the wars protecting our right to burn oil, out of work. Every poor high schooler or college student who's trying to pay for his books by changing oil and spark plugs...you've robbed them of their future...ok, I'll stop now.


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## david85 (Nov 12, 2007)

I stand corrected!


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## 26013 (Apr 3, 2012)

maybe the government should support ev drivers with a tax break. all the money that we normally send to iraq and kuwait for oil can now be spent in this country. imagine the billions of dollars in sales taxes the government could collect if even 10% of the cars on the road were ev. arent we taxed enough as it is?


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## lowcrawler (Jun 27, 2011)

Tax EV's when you stop incentivizing them. (and when they make a large enough portion of the road miles driven to matter)

As is, the government gives people money to buy an EV... because we, as a society/government have decided we want more people to get EV's. consider the lack of gas tax as another part of that incentive process.

Once you feel EV's are 'where they should be' numbers-wise, then stop all incentives... including getting to use the roads for free.

Now is not that time...


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## Coley (Jul 26, 2007)

Quote:
Here in TX where we had a major drought, and mandatory rationing was imposed and enforced on many water districts. This caused huge revenue drops because people were using less water. To compensate for the lost revenue, the water districts raised water rates to make up for the loss. Why? Because the Government will never do with less.

Same in Illinois with natural gas. Chicago residents were told to cut back on Nat gas a few years ago.

They did and what did the gas companies do? Raise prices because they weren't making enough money?!?!?! Excuse me...


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## somanywelps (Jan 25, 2012)

We had that happen in CA a few years ago.


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

The road tax in AZ for ICE vehicles is around 47 cents/gallon. This is really a penalty and punishes EV owners.

"My speedo/odometer is broken", OR "I only show 1 mile driven for the year"....LOL There are a LOT of ways around that. 

EV's should be rewarded, not taxed!

I know...Lets all dress up like Indians, go down to the docks and throw the ...wait......uh........wrong tax.

Miz


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

EV? What EV?

TX doesn't even know what an EV is. I was told the gas type field is read-only


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