Georgia will tax you 200$ a year for owning an electric car.

[Real_PhillBert]

There are taxes for roads already. Should Bicyclists and runners pay a tax for not needing gas too?

 

I would ask you for a study showing how much wear and damage bicyclists and runners do to a road network. Wait you cant find one? Perhaps that is because the amount of wear and damage they do to the road networks is negligible at best. This however is not the case for cars. 

 

Gas taxes help to pay for roadway maintenance, if your car is on the road why should you not have to pay to maintain it? 

[zacRupnow]

I admit I may be mistaken which is what I said in my post, but aren't the roads payed for through the gas tax. And if so electric cars haven't been paying the gas tax until now so it makes sense that they pay it now. Please correct me where I am wrong.

There is no specific 'gas tax' its part of sales tax. Roads are paid for with a combination of income tax and sales tax as well as money from facility bills like water or electrical, all the money goes to the government and they decide how much goes to what use. Someone driving electric is paying for road maintenance no less with their electric bill by charging their car then someone who buys gas for their car, the only difference is where the money comes from. People also must pay to renew their license to drive.

[Real_PhillBert]

There is no specific 'gas tax' its part of sales tax. Roads are paid for with a combination of income tax and sales tax as well as money from facility bills like water or electrical, all the money goes to the government and they decide how much goes to what use. Someone driving electric is paying for road maintenance no less with their electric bill by charging their car then someone who buys gas for their car, the only difference is where the money comes from. People also must pay to renew their license to drive.

What? There really is a gas tax...

 

http://taxfoundation.org/article/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2009-2013

[zacRupnow]

What? There really is a gas tax...

 

http://taxfoundation.org/article/state-gasoline-tax-rates-2009-2013

It's a type of sales tax

[Real_PhillBert]

It's a type of sales tax

You said there is no specific gas tax.

 

That is completely untrue. This is a specific tax per gallon of gas. Sales taxes are a percentage of the total purchase. For example if I buy a new SSD for $100 and my state has a 7% sales tax, I have to pay $107. What's important is that if the price of that SSD doubles to $200, the taxes also double so my total goes up to $214. This is not the case with a gas tax. Lets say the actual price of gas is $2.50/gallon and my state has a $0.25 tax on it, I have to pay $2.75/gallon of gas. Now lets say the price of gas doubles, gas is $5.00 but the tax is still only $0.25/gallon so I have to pay $5.25. See the difference, it is not a standard sales tax.

 

Saying it is just a sales tax is not completely truthful, and saying there is not a specific gas tax is 100% false. 

[Victorious Secret]

You said there is no specific gas tax.

 

That is completely untrue. This is a specific tax per gallon of gas. Sales taxes are a percentage of the total purchase. For example if I buy a new SSD for $100 and my state has a 7% sales tax, I have to pay $107. What's important is that if the price of that SSD doubles to $200, the taxes also double so my total goes up to $214. This is not the case with a gas tax. Lets say the actual price of gas is $2.50/gallon and my state has a $0.25 tax on it, I have to pay $2.75/gallon of gas. Now lets say the price of gas doubles, gas is $5.00 but the tax is still only $0.25/gallon so I have to pay $5.25. See the difference, it is not a standard sales tax.

 

Saying it is just a sales tax is not completely truthful, and saying there is not a specific gas tax is 100% false. 

 

Like I said before, kids who have no understanding of how taxes actually work and how road tax/gas taxes are actually implemented and used to fund the infrastructure. 

Upkeep on roads is EXPENSIVE. Especially when it is mandated these days to have roads be kept in service from anywhere to 25-50 years before needing a proper redo. Roads are expensive. They also are integral to society at large. People need to realize this. 

 

Oh wait, the average age and maturity of LTT is 12. What the hell did I expect? Just the typical knee jerk bullshit for whatever side seems more cool at the time of posting.

[Real_PhillBert]

Like I said before, kids who have no understanding of how taxes actually work and how road tax/gas taxes are actually implemented and used to fund the infrastructure. 

Upkeep on roads is EXPENSIVE. Especially when it is mandated these days to have roads be kept in service from anywhere to 25-50 years before needing a proper redo. Roads are expensive. They also are integral to society at large. People need to realize this. 

 

Oh wait, the average age and maturity of LTT is 12. What the hell did I expect? Just the typical knee jerk bullshit for whatever side seems more cool at the time of posting.

 

Your prediction appears to be accurate.

 

Some times I forget that the average age around here is so low. 

[zacRupnow]

You said there is no specific gas tax.

 

That is completely untrue. This is a specific tax per gallon of gas. Sales taxes are a percentage of the total purchase. For example if I buy a new SSD for $100 and my state has a 7% sales tax, I have to pay $107. What's important is that if the price of that SSD doubles to $200, the taxes also double so my total goes up to $214. This is not the case with a gas tax. Lets say the actual price of gas is $2.50/gallon and my state has a $0.25 tax on it, I have to pay $2.75/gallon of gas. Now lets say the price of gas doubles, gas is $5.00 but the tax is still only $0.25/gallon so I have to pay $5.25. See the difference, it is not a standard sales tax.

 

Saying it is just a sales tax is not completely truthful, and saying there is not a specific gas tax is 100% false. 

I meant by name, it's just another category of sales, not separate for itself

[Takata]

The millage is already paid for through you electrical bill from recharging the car.

Not really. Your electricity bill would only be for the cost of generating and transmitting the electricity. It doesn't cover the cost of maintaining the roads your electric vehicle inevitably drives on. My country has something like this called "road user charges" for diesel vehicles, because the price of diesel doesn't include a tax like the price of petrol.

[Real_PhillBert]

I meant by name, it's just another category of sales, not separate for itself

No, it is separate. When a state votes to raise sales tax, the gas taxes do not change. The opposite is also true.

Gas tax =\= sales tax.

[zacRupnow]

It doesn't cover the cost of maintaining the roads your electric vehicle inevitably drives on.

Neither does buying gas, its just how the government chooses use money from different sources.

[zacRupnow]

No, it is separate. When a state votes to raise sales tax, the gas taxes do not change. The opposite is also true.

Gas tax =\= sales tax.

That's because Standard Oil is a government controlled monopoly.

[TroubleKlef]

Although I don't agree with the method of taxation of the electric vehicles. I am in support for the road tax. Having a well done public road infrastructure is, in my opinion, vital for a society. 

[Takata]

Neither does buying gas, its just how the government chooses use money from different sources.

If there's a gas tax, then buying gas at least contributes (possibly substantially) to the cost of maintaining roads. Maybe they have to inject some money from elsewhere to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent, but I think most of its income is from gas taxes.

[zacRupnow]

If there's a gas tax, then buying gas at least contributes (possibly substantially) to the cost of maintaining roads. Maybe they have to inject some money from elsewhere to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent, but I think most of its income is from gas taxes.

All tax is just put in a big pile and the government decides how to divide it and where to put how much.

[Toddwjp]

while i think its fine to tax electric car uses for road tax i think you also have a responsibility to ensure there are enough charging stations around as well, then the tax being paid by the ec users also has some additional although miner benefit beyond road repair.  

[SIGSEGV]

How did ReviewTechUSA get into the government?

[PortentousLad]

Without wanting to give in to such ludicrous demands (Everyone's always worried about all the money they will loose because something or another has changed...)

 

I say: " let 'em have it, I'd be glad to pay 200 bucks(if I can afford it that is, obviously) to tell them I care more about progress and the environment than the oil/petrol/gas-lobby."

 

As Musk has said it, depending(tax or otherwise) this much on the usage of fossil fuel, in the year 2015 no less, is stupid!

[LlamaDom]

GUYYYYSSSSSS think about it. It was called the gas tax before electric cars where a thing. It's more like a road tax for infrastructure and electric cars drive on the same roads and have the same wear so why should they be exempt from tax. Of course if there is something I am missing please let me know but as far as I can see this actually makes sense. It's not like electric car owners are paying more than the gas counterparts, they both have to pay it.

Ah this does make sense.

[Aircooled Brain]

This is really great,under powered electric vehicles can never match powerful gas powered cars'trucks.Sissies drive electric cars.Also producing electricity to power electric card from coal etc isnt environmentally friendly. 

[patrickjp93]

Partially from Income Tax and Sales tax - which includes gas sales.

They can't charge someone a restaurants sales tax if they only eat food from their personal garden, its the same problem if that happened; The garden is paid for by the water bill, the gas car is paid for by gas sales, the electric car is paid for by the electric bill. Either car used still gives money to the government.

Government in most states doesn't take a chunk of your electric bill. Most of not all goes to a private but heavily regulated corporation.

[patrickjp93]

That's because Standard Oil is a government controlled monopoly.

Standard Oil is all but dead. What are you smoking? The pride of the Rockefellers was dismantled a long time ago.

[patrickjp93]

If by efficiency you mean cutting into home-owner land (talking about people's already small yards) to shave off a couple minutes drive, then fine.

If it's cheaper for the state and will invite new economic activity than repairing your roads, then yes, they will choose my option. Optionally you could band the community together to privately fund a road fix. Poor property owners. You made a bad decision and got burned. Boo hoo...

[wpirobotbuilder]

http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/03/georgia-gas-ev-tax/

 

 

Not only did they pull their EV subsidy (not a bad thing, in my opinion), they now tax you more for owning an electric car, This is to recoup a loss in gas tax revenue from EV drivers. 

 

This is stupid.

Really, really stupid. 

I think between 1-2% of Georgia cars are electric, a large number as far as revenue goes. I remember reading that when they pulled the subsidy 

One argument I've seen is gas taxes are meant for road infrastructure, so this recoups that loss. 

 

Yes. The gas tax pays for a huge portion of infrastructure costs. That's partly the reason infrastructure in America is so terrible -- the gas tax hasn't been raised in a long time, and it's now worth about half as much as it used to. That's a lot less money.

 

I'm okay with taxing electric cars for the purpose of regaining some of that money. Taxing electricity in general wouldn't make sense because very little of it goes to power EVs.

 

So some one realized that electric cars are worse for the environment than old petrol ones.

 

Took them long enough now let more follow and let this lie become public knowledge at last.

Electric cars are better for the environment in the long run. They have higher initial pollution, for sure.

 

Nobody who buys a vehicle of any kind is behaving in an environmentally sustainable way. There was never an illusion that using electric cars would solve all our problems.

 

I, for one, would have been very happy to own an electric car after Hurricane Sandy and not have had to wait seven hours to get gas.

[KeltonDSMer]

Just to follow up your post about the I-35W bridge in Mississippi.. 

"The deadly collapse of a Minneapolis bridge last year began at steel plates in a main truss, attributable to a design flaw and not corrosion, federal safety investigators said Thursday."

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-11-13-628592230_x.htm

 

You're misleading so badly, it's unreal. 

 

Where in my post did I claim the causation for the collapse was attributed to corrosion; also, why would that matter? The I-35 bridge disaster is simply an example of negligent infrastructure management. Whatever the flaw was with that bridge, the Army Corpse of Engineers/DOT gave it a failing grade years before the collapse and nothing was done to remedy the potential failure due to lack of funds.

 

I don't think it is fair to say I am misleading people when I am only trying to make some basic points about why EVs should pay road tax like any other vehicle on the road!

 

The state I live in has 529 structurally deficient bridges according to the DOT, that is ~6% or 1 in 17. We don't have the budget to pay for all of the repairs/replacements. This is a problem. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/no-april-fools-day-joke-529-of-colorados-bridges-need-structural-repair-new-analysis-of-us-department-of-transportation-data-finds-300059435.html

 

GA maintains a 47.8 cents/gallon (state+federal) gas tax according to this: http://www.gaspricewatch.com/web_gas_taxes.php

 

A $200/year fee for EVs in GA equates to the same tax a gas car would pay after purchasing 418 gallons of gas. 15,000 miles/year at 30miles/gallon is 500gallons/year. This seems perfectly reasonable and within the range of what someone who drives a gas car is already pays on average.

 

Like I previously said, it would be nice if there was a simple way to tax EVs based on usage and not a flat fee, but this is completely impractical. GA didn't pull the $200 number out of their ass...it falls in line with what an average commuter already pays yearly when driving a gas vehicle. I don't understand why some people find this unreasonable.