Tax on gas and road funding

[RAW84]

We're clearly failing to communicate here, and I don't understand just where the gap is...

I get electricity from a grid - I pay taxes to support that grid.

I drive on public roads - I pay taxes to support those roads.

The ICE driver drives on public roads - He pays taxes to support those roads.

The ICE driver probably has a house where he pays taxes on the electricity he uses there, but it's irrelevant - he doesn't need the electric grid to support his car, so why would he pay for it with his gas?

(Although, actually, it's folded into the price of his gas, to support the grid in providing power to pump the gas. Secret, hidden tax. Shh...)

I don't necessarily disagree about the pollution and its impacts, but the conditions are sufficiently variable and unpredictable that we can only handle them with statistical methods, and that makes it really hard to make fair assessments. Then there's the whole "what price do you put on life/health question...
Walter

Are you sure about that?

The costs of maintaining the grid is typically covered by other charges on your bill (take this bill breakdown from PUC: https://www.puc.state.pa.us/general/consumer_ed/pdf/Electric_Bill_Breakdown_FS.pdf ) Often, when they need to build a major piece of infrastructure, they petition the state and that's added as a separate line item on your bill.

The tax on electricity goes to the state's coffers the same as the tax on an Xbox controller, not towards maintaining the grid

I agree with Evbwcaer, just because that money isn't being appropriated towards the roads doesn't mean I'm not already being taxed (albeit, perhaps an unfair amount).

 

[Merrill]

I have talked about this before and do not mind paying for the road maintenance, but in California we pay one of the highest gas taxes for road maintenance but that money is going into a general fund and some of it is not going to fix the roads as you will see if you drive on Cailfornia roads. So let's get a fair way to tax on the miles you drive and make sure that money can only be used to repair the roads.

 

[mknox]

This IS being double taxed because you get taxed on the electricity that fuels your car and you, essentially, get taxed on the equivalent gas (that you did not use). Two taxes. A person driving a gas car pays only the equivalent gas tax. One tax.

It varies by jurisdiction, but believe me, there is a lot more than two taxes. For example, here in Ontario, Canada electricity has a number of regulatory charges that make up the rate, then the whole thing has HST slapped on top (a harmonized federal and provincial tax on most goods and services that just goes to "general revenues"). Gasoline has a similar number of taxes built in to the rate with the HST slapped on the top.