RE: Pay Per Mile Tax: Innovative Thinking Or Inability To Innovate?
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People have have a hard time figuring out how to pay for roads since antiquity.
Private roads often charged tolls. The problem is figuring out when, where and how to charge the tolls.
Truck drivers in the US have been paying taxes for road mile driven for quite some time. Truck drivers keep detailed logs of every mile driven in each state along with info on the fuel they purchase.
They then end up filing complex reports that weigh the miles driven against fuel purchased.
The ability to electronically track every mile cars drive might lead to a more equitable system for funding road maintenance. If designed correctly, we might even see privatization of more of the nation's infrastructure.
BTW, the privare railroads in the US charged customers for the use of the rails. A primary reason that people preferred cars to railroads is people felt that they could externalize the cost of the rails onto the cars.
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I have heard that truck drivers have to keep track of their miles and fuel purchases than file taxes based on that. I think it had more to do with how these taxes are split up among states that trucks travel trough.
A lot of these just add unnecessary bureaucracy and adds cots of complying with them for the tax payers.
You are right it is not easy to figure out how to pay for roads. But with decades and centuries of knowledge, it shouldn't be too difficult either.
Big rigs usually have huge tanks; so they can decide when and where to buy fuel.
The mileage taxes paid by truckers are entirely about states wanting drivers to pay for the roads they use as big trucks take a huge toll on local roads.
Having cars do the same thing might actually create a road system which is more responsive to actual use.
BTW, I would not mind seeing insurance combined with a mileage tax. Imagine a system where the taxes increased depending on the risks associated with a given road. This would encourage safer driving and encourage states to build better roads.