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NZ has the advantage that all vehicle miles travelled are within their jurisdiction. US states, Canadian provinces, and EU countries all have drivers travelling
by theluketaylor 3y ago
NZ has the advantage that all vehicle miles travelled are within their jurisdiction. US states, Canadian provinces, and EU countries all have drivers travelling significant distances out of jurisdiction, likely resulting in inefficient taxation. With a simple odometer reading Utah would collect taxes on road miles that took place in Colorado, whereas Colorado has no mechanism to collect taxes on the wear and tear on its road network by Utah citizens.
On the other hand, the idea of having a government tracker in my car all the time is beyond icky. I'd much rather overspend a little via a simple annual odometer reading than have a government agency with access to detailed location logging.
A federal annual odometer reading that then distributes funds to states based on vehicle miles travelled and road network size solves the jurisdiction problem, but would never fly in the US as federal overreach.
- olliej 3y agoFarmers, construction, etc are required to keep their non-taxed vehicles off the road, if they're caught on the road with them they can be required to pay any taxes on the entirety of the odometer since the last sale. The cross-state-borders could simply require you to report your odometer readings on exit and entry to the state. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that the majority of drivers would not care about a few dollars "extra" from some cross-state adventures, and those that do care can do the extra couple of minutes of working. Another alternative would be to require all car chargers (including those connected to personal solar) include meters internally and require the owners to pay taxes on those (which would be trivially integrated with pricing on commercial chargers, but there are plenty of non-commercial deployments).