6 ms·

Yeah much of it doesn't transfer, but on the subject of the taxes in The Netherlands a lot of it is nonsensical: 1. You pay tax per weight of the vehicle, and

by avar 8y ago

Yeah much of it doesn't transfer, but on the subject of the taxes in The Netherlands a lot of it is nonsensical: 1. You pay tax per weight of the vehicle, and that's a (mostly?) linear relationship. Whereas a 10 ton vehicle causes much more than 10x the wear & tear to roadways than a 1 ton vehicle. 2. Even if it were adjusted for the wear it shouldn't be a fixed fee, but based on actual usage. Paying it for a combination of the weight and mileage/yr would still not reflect reality, but would be closer. 3. There's no tax for vehicle size, just weight (the two don't always closely follow each other), which produces an externality on small Dutch roadways.

oneplane 8y ago
That tax is not the only one paying for the roads; the normal tax on fuel and the fuel-specific tax on top of that (which also differs per type of fuel) offsets the heavier engines or heavier users. At the same time, a project people abandoned a few times (mostly because or scare tactics) is in the works to see if we can lower or abandon some of the taxes in favour of usage-based taxes measured by vehicle kilometers on-road. So if you drive more, you pay more. At the same time, I don't think it makes sense to make all tax super dependant on what you drive, where you drive it, and what money you make. We already have some specific systems in place to deal with the discrepancy between high income and low income (and the gradient in the middle), so instead of making the tax system more complex by adding yet more variables to existing rules, a rule with a highly specific target is simpler and reaches more of the people it applies to. Basically, if you are poor, or simply don't make enough money to save or invest, a lot of the taxes no longer apply. At the same time, if your income is so low you are getting towards the edge of not surviving (depending on where you are I guess) you get money for rent and healthcare. And on top of that: if you don't have a lot of money, it makes no sense to own a car anyway. I don't think a true per-use system that only relies on what the current usage of anything is will work, simply because we cannot predict what we will need or use in the future and it disables all paths to investments or building infrastructure because it is a lifeline to certain areas. After all, it's not a for-profit corporate system we're talking about, it's a country or a government. While sensible decisions are of course needed, and adjustments to how some things are paid for can be very sensible, making a very tight integration between what is available and what it currently used is a very bad idea for humans.
- avar 8y ago
  Fuel taxes are just another version of taxing the wrong thing. People using gasoline for e.g. yard equipment aren't using the roads, but they're effectively paying road tax to trim their hedge. Someone who owns a Tesla also isn't paying their road tax. Taxes and tolls should be based on what/where/when you drive. Someone driving in circles in downtown Amsterdam in the middle of the day is causing a lot more externalities than someone doing the same thing in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Nothing about saying fees shouldn't be externalized is an argument that there shouldn't be investment in infrastructure. Although I think you'll find that once car infrastructure would have to pay real property tax and pay for its externalities (including pollution etc.) we'd need less road infrastructure. You'd get more density, more things shipped by train instead of trucks etc.
  - Johnny555 8y ago
    People using gasoline for e.g. yard equipment aren't using the roads, but they're effectively paying road tax to trim their hedge It's legal to use untaxed (undyed) fuel for off-road uses, but the quantities are so low that it's not worth the distribution system for it. So usually it's only used by large consumers (i.e. farmers and other consumers with large off-road fuel usage) Someone who owns a Tesla also isn't paying their road tax. That will change next year when California will start charging a $100 EV fee for car registrations. It's still less than the $176 a 10,000 mile/year 30mpg driver will pay in gas tax, but it's not "nothing". Though since EV's are typically more expensive than the equivalent conventional car, they'll pay a higher VLF fee. So for example, $10,000 in extra value means $65/year more VLF tax so that EV will be paying around $165/year. I'd rather see a milage + weight based tax.
  - pas 8y ago
    > in downtown Amsterdam in the middle of the day is causing a lot more externalities than someone doing the same thing in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. how to track that in a privacy friendly way?
  - mcv 8y ago
    > Fuel taxes are just another version of taxing the wrong thing. It's not really the wrong thing, it's a different thing. Fuel taxes make a lot of sense as carbon taxes to pay for the pollution you're causing. Ultimately, though, it's complicated to tax everybody exactly for the societal costs they're causing. Taxing just the weight of the car doesn't take usage into account. Taxing fuel doesn't sufficiently take weight into account. To tax people correctly for road use you'd have to keep detailed track of how much they use their car, and that may get rather invasive into people's privacy. That said, it's pretty clear that cars cause more externalities than they're being taxed for.

by avar 8y ago

oneplane 8y ago

That tax is not the only one paying for the roads; the normal tax on fuel and the fuel-specific tax on top of that (which also differs per type of fuel) offsets the heavier engines or heavier users. At the same time, a project people abandoned a few times (mostly because or scare tactics) is in the works to see if we can lower or abandon some of the taxes in favour of usage-based taxes measured by vehicle kilometers on-road. So if you drive more, you pay more. At the same time, I don't think it makes sense to make all tax super dependant on what you drive, where you drive it, and what money you make. We already have some specific systems in place to deal with the discrepancy between high income and low income (and the gradient in the middle), so instead of making the tax system more complex by adding yet more variables to existing rules, a rule with a highly specific target is simpler and reaches more of the people it applies to. Basically, if you are poor, or simply don't make enough money to save or invest, a lot of the taxes no longer apply. At the same time, if your income is so low you are getting towards the edge of not surviving (depending on where you are I guess) you get money for rent and healthcare. And on top of that: if you don't have a lot of money, it makes no sense to own a car anyway. I don't think a true per-use system that only relies on what the current usage of anything is will work, simply because we cannot predict what we will need or use in the future and it disables all paths to investments or building infrastructure because it is a lifeline to certain areas. After all, it's not a for-profit corporate system we're talking about, it's a country or a government. While sensible decisions are of course needed, and adjustments to how some things are paid for can be very sensible, making a very tight integration between what is available and what it currently used is a very bad idea for humans.

avar 8y ago
Fuel taxes are just another version of taxing the wrong thing. People using gasoline for e.g. yard equipment aren't using the roads, but they're effectively paying road tax to trim their hedge. Someone who owns a Tesla also isn't paying their road tax. Taxes and tolls should be based on what/where/when you drive. Someone driving in circles in downtown Amsterdam in the middle of the day is causing a lot more externalities than someone doing the same thing in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Nothing about saying fees shouldn't be externalized is an argument that there shouldn't be investment in infrastructure. Although I think you'll find that once car infrastructure would have to pay real property tax and pay for its externalities (including pollution etc.) we'd need less road infrastructure. You'd get more density, more things shipped by train instead of trucks etc.
- Johnny555 8y ago
  People using gasoline for e.g. yard equipment aren't using the roads, but they're effectively paying road tax to trim their hedge It's legal to use untaxed (undyed) fuel for off-road uses, but the quantities are so low that it's not worth the distribution system for it. So usually it's only used by large consumers (i.e. farmers and other consumers with large off-road fuel usage) Someone who owns a Tesla also isn't paying their road tax. That will change next year when California will start charging a $100 EV fee for car registrations. It's still less than the $176 a 10,000 mile/year 30mpg driver will pay in gas tax, but it's not "nothing". Though since EV's are typically more expensive than the equivalent conventional car, they'll pay a higher VLF fee. So for example, $10,000 in extra value means $65/year more VLF tax so that EV will be paying around $165/year. I'd rather see a milage + weight based tax.
- pas 8y ago
  > in downtown Amsterdam in the middle of the day is causing a lot more externalities than someone doing the same thing in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. how to track that in a privacy friendly way?
- mcv 8y ago
  > Fuel taxes are just another version of taxing the wrong thing. It's not really the wrong thing, it's a different thing. Fuel taxes make a lot of sense as carbon taxes to pay for the pollution you're causing. Ultimately, though, it's complicated to tax everybody exactly for the societal costs they're causing. Taxing just the weight of the car doesn't take usage into account. Taxing fuel doesn't sufficiently take weight into account. To tax people correctly for road use you'd have to keep detailed track of how much they use their car, and that may get rather invasive into people's privacy. That said, it's pretty clear that cars cause more externalities than they're being taxed for.