VMT - Vehicle Miles Traveled TAX

     You know what?  You gotta love our government.  Have you heard the latest way they intend to try and punish us?  The VMT Tax, or Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax.  They are saying now that it might replace the gasoline tax, but let's be honest here, can someone tell me the last time the government completely eliminated one tax to replace it with another?  I can't think of a single time.  I know when they passed the local school income tax, they said it would replace the school property tax, then after it passed, they left most of the property tax in place, and have since placed more property taxes for the schools on the ballot.  So if you think that the gasoline tax will "disappear" making gas cheaper, I suspect that you may be delusional and in need of medication.  Even if it does go away, that will drop gas prices by what?  19, maybe 20 cents?  That still doesn't drop the price of gas below $3.00 a gallon, so what you pay at the pump will still be outrageous, and you'll have to pay 1.1cents per mile on top of that.  Next we come to the three ways they are looking at collecting this tax.  Way number one (the easiest but also the method most open to fraud) :  Pay at the BMV when you renew your tags.  The estimates I have seen show the average driver would owe between $108.00 and $248.00, just in mileage tax on top of the fees for tags and registration, which in Ohio would push the cost of tags and registration each year from about $50.00 to $150.00 - $300.00.  Jumping Jehosaphat!  I don't know about any of you, but I wouldn't be able to afford that.  There goes my ability to have a decent job.  Method number two:  Pay at the pump.  A special remote reader at the gas pumps would read a gps unit in each car and determine how many miles the vehicle has driven since it was last fueled up and adds the tax to the cost of the fuel.  There are a number of problems with this.  First is that the tech to do this has to be developed, tested, installed, and implemented, at varying levels of expense spread out across vehicle owners, station owners, and the government.  Second is that even minor glitches in this system could create massive difficulties in correctly assessing and collection of the tax.    The third method they are discussing for this tax is requiring a vehicles to have a "blackbox"  type of gps unit to monitor how many miles are driven, and where those miles were driven so that taxes can be accurately assessed, and then distributed to the correct states as well as the federal government.  Of course, if you drive an older model car that doesn't have one of these factory installed, it will be your responsibility to buy one and have it installed.  And the sad fact is, regardless of which method is finally settled on, the odds of the gas tax going away are astronomically small.  Once again, rather than find a way to stop spending more money than they bring in with current revenue, they would rather take yet more money out of the pockets of the already overtaxed!

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