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Gas taxes affect those who already have a gas car and may not have the budget to replace it. Point-of-purchase taxes affect the choice of which vehicle to buy

Gas taxes affect those who already have a gas car and may not have the budget to replace it. Point-of-purchase taxes affect the choice of which vehicle to buy at the point where you were already deciding which vehicle to buy.

gambiting 7y ago
Point of purchases taxes are also poor in that they fail to reflect the damage that particular car will do. For example - a Lamborghini will have outrageous taxes due to high emissions, but a Lamborghini is usually only driven 10-20k miles in its lifetime, nearly never for commute, and usually only filled up with best fuels and well maintained. Then in comparison a Fiat Panda will have tiny emissions taxes if any, even though compared to that Lamborghini it will pollute far more through its lifetime. No, I think fuel taxes are the right way to do this - the more fuel you use the more you drive = the more you pollute.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  You can certainly estimate the damage a particular car model will do and impose an appropriate excise tax. While the damage to the environment from people driving Lamborghini's is a rounding error. So would a carbon excise tax. If you charged $100/ton of CO2 that would be about $15k on top of a $400k price tag.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  You are missing the energy used to make the car! Driving a vehicle on 10-20k is shocking from an environmental perspective once you include manufacturing.
Gibbon1 7y ago
Exactly!!! I keep harping on that. Consider a 10 year old Toyota Camry. Soon as it was built we were committed to another 60 tons of CO2 emissions. Raising the gas tax doesn't undo that decision. And people don't junk cars because the price of gas. They junk cars because of maintenance and repair costs. Raising gas taxes is totally weak sauce and invites political blow back. Better to just pay people to take marginal cars off the road. And discourage people from buying new ICE powered cars. Especially low MPG ICE cars.

gambiting 7y ago

Point of purchases taxes are also poor in that they fail to reflect the damage that particular car will do. For example - a Lamborghini will have outrageous taxes due to high emissions, but a Lamborghini is usually only driven 10-20k miles in its lifetime, nearly never for commute, and usually only filled up with best fuels and well maintained. Then in comparison a Fiat Panda will have tiny emissions taxes if any, even though compared to that Lamborghini it will pollute far more through its lifetime. No, I think fuel taxes are the right way to do this - the more fuel you use the more you drive = the more you pollute.

Gibbon1 7y ago
You can certainly estimate the damage a particular car model will do and impose an appropriate excise tax. While the damage to the environment from people driving Lamborghini's is a rounding error. So would a carbon excise tax. If you charged $100/ton of CO2 that would be about $15k on top of a $400k price tag.
hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
You are missing the energy used to make the car! Driving a vehicle on 10-20k is shocking from an environmental perspective once you include manufacturing.

Gibbon1 7y ago

Exactly!!! I keep harping on that. Consider a 10 year old Toyota Camry. Soon as it was built we were committed to another 60 tons of CO2 emissions. Raising the gas tax doesn't undo that decision. And people don't junk cars because the price of gas. They junk cars because of maintenance and repair costs. Raising gas taxes is totally weak sauce and invites political blow back. Better to just pay people to take marginal cars off the road. And discourage people from buying new ICE powered cars. Especially low MPG ICE cars.