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I'm torn on environmental taxes. As an economist, I see them as a truly vital form of offsetting negative externalities. The problem is that environmental exter

I'm torn on environmental taxes. As an economist, I see them as a truly vital form of offsetting negative externalities. The problem is that environmental externalities can be very hard to measure, and it often becomes political, rather than emperical. Worse, is that taxes only get larger over time (and very very rarely sunset, even if legislation specifies a sunset claus). This makes me very nervous about something as nebulous as a "carbon" tax. Carbon is in nearly everything we care about on this planet, and it feels like it's opening a pandora's box. For things like transportation I'd much rather see a "miles traveled" tax than a carbon tax (it could even be tiered for electric vehicles). It's far more specific, and thus harder to lead to crazy far reaching taxes in tangential areas.

zeroer 9y ago
> I'd much rather see a "miles traveled" tax than a carbon tax Why? The harm done is relative to emissions, which is exactly proportional to the volume of fuel going in. A tax on miles traveled would unfairly punish cars with great (or infinite) gas mileage. (Unless you think the relevant externality is cars on the road...)
- labster 9y ago
  A few externalities do happen from cars on the road. Oil leaks are one. Aerosol pollution (black carbon type) from wearing down tires on the road. Roadkill impact on wildlife. But they're dwarfed by non-environmental factors like road wear-and-tear, and accidents, which are covered by other taxes and insurance.
epistasis 9y ago
> Worse, is that taxes only get larger over time (and very very rarely sunset, even if legislation specifies a sunset claus) The past 40 years of politics shows that this is simply not true in reality, though it is often repeated. There is significant political will to lower taxes, and taxes get lowered frequently. More frequently on the wealthy, but frequently nonetheless. When it comes to taxing externalities and improving market function, there's often significant room to improve the market. As long as costs can be estimated within ~50% it's going to be a big win to legislate them. However, since the cost of going over is often not linear, it can be difficult to enforce in a fair way in the market without some sort of auction scheme like what goes on in cap & trade. A miles tax is far worse than a carbon tax; it's far more of a stab in the dark. It doesn't even account for wear & tear in any way, which is dependent on an polynomial of the vehicle weight. Large fossil fuel companies, like Exxon, are planning on an $80/ton carbon tax. There's zero reason to not phase this in along with the Paris accords. It's silly to ignore the work that those, negatively affected by the tax, have already agreed is going to happen.
- MR4D 9y ago
  The parent poster is correct - I think you may have confused tax rates with taxes collected. Source: http://www.justfacts.com/taxes.asp http://www.justfacts.com/taxes.asp (tons of footnotes there to bea.gov
  - epistasis 9y ago
    Considering that both tax rates and taxes collected go both up and down, in your plots, what do you think I've confused here?
- pixl97 9y ago
  >A miles tax is far worse than a carbon tax; it's far more of a stab in the dark. It doesn't even account for wear & tear in any way, I would assume that the tax rate would be based on vehicle class, but that seems too easy.

zeroer 9y ago

> I'd much rather see a "miles traveled" tax than a carbon tax Why? The harm done is relative to emissions, which is exactly proportional to the volume of fuel going in. A tax on miles traveled would unfairly punish cars with great (or infinite) gas mileage. (Unless you think the relevant externality is cars on the road...)

labster 9y ago
A few externalities do happen from cars on the road. Oil leaks are one. Aerosol pollution (black carbon type) from wearing down tires on the road. Roadkill impact on wildlife. But they're dwarfed by non-environmental factors like road wear-and-tear, and accidents, which are covered by other taxes and insurance.

epistasis 9y ago

> Worse, is that taxes only get larger over time (and very very rarely sunset, even if legislation specifies a sunset claus) The past 40 years of politics shows that this is simply not true in reality, though it is often repeated. There is significant political will to lower taxes, and taxes get lowered frequently. More frequently on the wealthy, but frequently nonetheless. When it comes to taxing externalities and improving market function, there's often significant room to improve the market. As long as costs can be estimated within ~50% it's going to be a big win to legislate them. However, since the cost of going over is often not linear, it can be difficult to enforce in a fair way in the market without some sort of auction scheme like what goes on in cap & trade. A miles tax is far worse than a carbon tax; it's far more of a stab in the dark. It doesn't even account for wear & tear in any way, which is dependent on an polynomial of the vehicle weight. Large fossil fuel companies, like Exxon, are planning on an $80/ton carbon tax. There's zero reason to not phase this in along with the Paris accords. It's silly to ignore the work that those, negatively affected by the tax, have already agreed is going to happen.

MR4D 9y ago
The parent poster is correct - I think you may have confused tax rates with taxes collected. Source: http://www.justfacts.com/taxes.asp http://www.justfacts.com/taxes.asp (tons of footnotes there to bea.gov
- epistasis 9y ago
  Considering that both tax rates and taxes collected go both up and down, in your plots, what do you think I've confused here?
pixl97 9y ago
>A miles tax is far worse than a carbon tax; it's far more of a stab in the dark. It doesn't even account for wear & tear in any way, I would assume that the tax rate would be based on vehicle class, but that seems too easy.