A republican wants to raise taxes
Kansas Representative Pitches 1 Cent Per Kilowatt-Hour Tax on Plug-in Vehicles
State Representative Tom Sloane (R-KS) hopes to introduce legislation calling for plug-in vehicle owners to shell out "less than one cent of tax" for each kilowatt-hour consumed by their vehicles.
Kansas collects about 24 cents of tax on every gallon of gasoline pumped at the state's gas stations. A portion of this tax is set aside to fund road-related projects ranging from simple repairs to expanding the state's highways and byways. One official in Kansas is concerned that if too many of the state's residents switch to electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, then revenue from the gas tax will no longer be sufficient to keeps Kansas' roads in good condition.
State Representative Tom Sloane (R-KS) introduced a bill that calls for plug-in vehicle owners to pay "less than one cent of tax" for each kilowatt-hour consumed by their vehicles, according to a report last week from Associated Press. As Sloane states, "I believe that such vehicles should pay the equivalent of the motor fuels tax, so that they do not ride free when gasoline vehicles pay to maintain the system."
Sloane proposes that owners of plug-in vehicles have two electrical meters installed at their residence: one to measure home electrical consumption and one that records the amount of electricity used in their plug-in vehicles. Electricity sent to automobiles would be subjected to the per kilowatt-hour tax. Public EV charging would also be taxed.
General Motors opposes the idea. The company reported that only two dozen Chevrolet Volts are currently registered with the state. GM spokesman Jeffrey Perry, who testified during a recent hearing about the proposal, said that no state that has imposed such a tax. Last year, Washington state considered but rejected a flat $100 annual fee for electric cars.
GM's Perry said imposing the fee would discourage consumers from buying electric cars, that use clean-burning domestic energy. And it would it send the wrong message to American automakers, as they try to compete in the burgeoning electric car market. "Why would we want to continue supporting this technology and pushing forward if what we're being told is, we're going to tax this to its death before it ever gets a chance to survive?" Perry said.
Representatives from both sides of the aisle expressed skepticism about Sloane's proposal.
About the author
Bradley Berman is the editor of PluginCars.com. Brad writes about alternative energy cars for The New York Times, Detroit Free Press, Reuters and other publications. He is quoted in national media outlets, such as CBS News, ABC News, CNBC, CBC, and MarketWatch. Mr. Berman is a tireless researcher of the green car market. He is the transportation editor at Home Power magazine.
Comments
· Registered User (not verified) · 15 weeks ago
· Chris O (not verified) · 15 weeks ago
Obviously the handful of electric vehicles that are around at this point are not having a measurable effect on tax revenues so this is not about that. This is about the Grand Oil Party trying to frustrate adoption of EVs by making life difficult for EV owners by making owning one a hassle. It fits a pattern of recent anti EV behaviour of the GOP.
· tterbo · 15 weeks ago
Well, they've got to keep the roads maintained. Otherwise the $40,000+ investment will not last very long. Or they could just put bigger tires on the roads and go with the dirt approach. Kind of a wild west deal. It's affordable. hehe :)
· tterbo · 15 weeks ago
What they could do with EVs and may be forced to do is make every paved road and RFID toll road. It should be pretty fair. Every road would receive the exact funding necessary given the number of cars on it, times their weight. Granted the fairness of the actual pricing could vary. Especially if a 10 foot stretch of road out of town costs $100. :D
· alt-e · 15 weeks ago
There was a State Senator in Washington State who had a similiar proposal a few years ago. Have the oil companies lost their touch? Can they no longer afford to buy actual national Senators in DC to do their bidding?
I think we should all take a moment to feel sorry for the oil companies and how their budgets must be so tight if they can't muster the cash to buy national Senators. I would think that with record profits they could afford to do that, but maybe not.
If the oil companies took this idea to the federal level then instead of having people pay to have a separate meter installed, they could just take a road fee out of the $7,500 tax credit that is being given to EV buyers to encourage them to by an EV and get us off of oil dependance. Such logic.
What about bicycles and the bike lanes? Obviously there needs to be an anual fee charged to anyone who owns a bike in order to keep up the bike lanes. Or maybe milage meters can be placed on bicycles and a quarter can be fed into the meter every mile or the bike puts on the brakes. Then the government could hire meter readers to go door to door to collect the change from the meters on each person's bike.
Then there is the whole shoe/sidewalk thing.
· TjKinMT (not verified) · 15 weeks ago
A one cent per kWh works out to be a 10% tax at my rates. Lets raise the gasoline tax to that percentage first, but that might cut down the use of gasoline.
· CharlesF (not verified) · 15 weeks ago
If you taxed vehicles by the damage they do to roads, trucks would pay about 10,000 times what a Leaf would. Just do a carbon tax for the pollution part of the vehicle damage. Pay for roads from general funds. Everybody benefits from the roads, not just the people who drive on them and fuel taxes.
· ex-EV1 driver · 15 weeks ago
One of the reasons we have such good roads in our country is because the consumption of gasoline provided such a self-funding system.
This, of course, is why bike lanes languish - they don't pay for themselves.
I think this is a serious problem but I firmly believe that taxation should be based on miles driven and vehicle weight as that is proportional with one's usage of and damage to our roads. I would think that an annual odometer reading recording by a government official should suffice.
· Priusmaniac (not verified) · 15 weeks ago
Unfortunately evil is always one step ahead of the good. This proposal at this date is just insane. To compensate the loss there just needs to be an increase in fuel taxes on the stubborn that keep using it. With double the fuel tax, you can have 50% plug-in’s without any budget difference for the state. With a quadrupling you can have 75% plug-in’ and with a tenfold 90% of plug-in’s. Then, perhaps we may start thinking about an alternative tax, but only then.
· Pipeline · 14 weeks ago
An annual, low flat fee like Washington's proposal would be fair only when EVs achieve substantially more market share. Imagine the state’s regulation costs and those to the consumer for this proposal. A separate electrical meter? Isn't one of the goals of this transition intended to be simplicity or can't it be? I can’t believe this Kansas politician suggested this route especially at this point in market saturation.
· Tom Moloughney · 14 weeks ago
"I think this is a serious problem but I firmly believe that taxation should be based on miles driven and vehicle weight as that is proportional with one's usage of and damage to our roads. I would think that an annual odometer reading recording by a government official should suffice."
Agree completely.(and I'd be paying a lot because I drive a lot!) It's the most fair way to do it. How it's paid would be another issue. You can't make it a one time annual payment as many people wouldn't be able to pay it. That's the one thing that's good about how it is currently collected, it's many very small payments during the year and many people don't even know they are paying it. They have no idea how much gas is taxed and what the taxes are for.
· Chris · 14 weeks ago
Well this is just another example of a politician legislating there own interest. Tom Sloan used to work for Getty Oil. It is right there on Wikipedia. If he's not working for them directly he is most likely just protecting his stock options.
· Dan Whisler · 14 weeks ago
I am one of the handful of Volt drivers on Kansas roads right now and and must say I find this proposed tax idea a bit confusing. Why have a Federal Tax Credit to provide an incentive for consumers to consider purchasing a PHEV and then create a tax specific to that purchase and remove part of the incentive? I understand in the future as the number of PHEV's on the road increases that something like this might need to be discussed, but there would have to be a BIG increase in the number of PHEV's on the road to give this any real thought. Seriously? I used less than 250 kWh's in our first month of driving, but how much would it cost to collect this $2.50 tax and make sure I was charging only on the metered station in my garage?
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Eventually governments will have to find a way to collect road taxes for EV use, assuming we continue to fund infrastructure that way. A flat, annual tax might be simplest, or perhaps a formula based on odometer readings minus any gasoline taxes paid (for PHEVs).
But this is a really stupid idea. Who would police which outlet we plug our cars in to? How can the state force people to charge from metered charge points? Would I be in violation if I were to visit a friend or relative's house, and plug in to a regular, non-metered outlet for the trip home? What if I have my own power generation and am not charging from the grid? Or what if I cover my car with thin-film solar panels and derive a few miles of range per day from them?
Either Rep. Sloane isn't using his brain, or this is another sad case of political posturing.