Weight * distance is actually literally fun for governments to implement.

Why?

Because it gives them more taxes, bigger government and as a bonus more spying on citizens.

The Dutch government has been talking about this type of tax for decades. The idea is to put a mandatory live-tracking device in every car that sends data to the government about where you are at all times.

Currently the tax is based on weight and type of energy source of the car and some of the highest taxes on fuel in the world. This boils down to the same as the weight * distance tax. But why keep it simple if you could complicate it further AND get free live spying as a bonus?

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bcraven 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

In UK my yearly MOT records how far my car has driven.

Taxing distance doesn't need to track _where_ the car has been, just how far it's gone.

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Ntrails 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

I seem to recall when selling cars the V5 transfer also has a mileage (so easy to attribute)

It isn't precisely easy (MOT and tax timings won't line up etc) and arrears rather than advance etc. We definitely have enough data to do a fair approximation - just high operational overheads to collect

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kordite 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's utterly insane, but there is no equivalent to the MOT in the US. There's an emissions test, but not a safety test. I don't know if mileage is recorded at the emissions test.

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amanaplanacanal 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

That depends. Do you also tax when the car is driven outside the country?

	▲	rdsubhas 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		It's legitimate to track entry and exit on national borders though. A tax exception based on entry/exit times is doable and better than constant geo tracking.

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klodolph 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why would you not just use the odometer reading?

Cars get sold, eventually. You put the odometer reading on the paperwork to transfer the car. Check that against tax records. Purchaser has incentive to check that the recorded mileage is correct, otherwise they’ll have to pay the tax. The odometer is already tamper-resistant. Not perfectly so, and there is fraud, but there is always tax fraud.

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londons_explore 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

> there is fraud, but there is always tax fraud.

It's also a type of fraud which is fairly easy to detect. If a car is recorded as driving just 2000 miles per year, yet freeway cameras detected it driving 100 miles every weekday all year, open a fraud case.

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Bluestrike2 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

> It's also a type of fraud which is fairly easy to detect. If a car is recorded as driving just 2000 miles per year, yet freeway cameras detected it driving 100 miles every weekday all year, open a fraud case.

Sure, but why bother? That would involve a ton of overhead and server time for a system that's still going to miss a lot of travel, thereby limiting revenue. I question whether the added expense of that kind of surveillance system would even recover enough revenue to break even. The same goes for mandatory GPS reporting devices, plus the civil liberties issues associated with such systems would make passing such a tax even more difficult.

Most countries have some sort of annual safety/emissions inspection, so any mileage-based tax could just use the odometer readings from the inspection. Sure, a mechanic could falsify paperwork, but how likely is that when it'll eventually come to light? If you want to sell the car, you're going to have to eventually admit the miles you hid so that they match the odometer reading at the time of title transfer. That means you're going to have no choice but to pay the tax eventually.

No need to try and build a more perfect mouse trap.

	▲	londons_explore 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Nah - you get citizens to self report odometer readings annually, or use annual inspections. And you employ a few people to run your 'fraud team' which will use CCTV to catch fraud, and auto-mail out letters with fines. 15 peoples civil service salaries = $1.5M say. They will contact local car park owners, municipalities and states who have ANPR cameras, etc. From each, they'll get a spreadsheet of plate no, date/time and camera lat/lon. Many police departments already centralize that info to search for stolen cars etc. They'll then run the whole lot through a python script to make a database of plate num + annual mileage. They'll then compare that to the self-reported mileage and investigate any underreporting. Assume that this is implemented in the USA, and 1% of people fake the odometer by 50%. Assume the tax is 5 cents a mile. Total vehicle miles traveled is 3e12 miles, and assume we can easily detect 30% of offenders, due to them driving long distances on highways, and fine all those detected 3x the fraudulent amount. Total takings: $337M. Clearly worth enforcing.

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zoofrak 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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Tagbert 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

The reason I have read is that the car can only be taxed within a given jurisdiction. If you travel outside that jurisdiction then the vehicle would not be taxed by that authority. I could be taxed by an authority in another jurisdiction.

The analogy is probably a fuel tax that is paid at the point of purchase.

Still, it seems that we could agree that taxes for a vehicle be paid in the jurisdiction where it is registered and just use odometer readings to calculate the distance traveled.

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wodenokoto 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The Dutch government has been talking about this type of tax for decades. The idea is to put a mandatory live-tracking device in every car that sends data to the government about where you are at all times.

God damn.

I would have gone with "mandatory service where the odometer is sent to the government, and government keeps track of when last service was done and fines owners who are late"

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OptionOfT 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They want the live tracking service because they want to change the price per mile driven based on congestion on the road. So your trip from Maastricht to Eindhoven will be a lot cheaper at 2am than it will be at 8am.

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tzs 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why would they need a tracking device for this? If Google is to be believed the Dutch government requires periodic vehicle inspections. Couldn't they just go by the odometer difference between inspections to get the mileage?

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dmichulke 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't weight * distance proportional to gas consumption?

Sure, you'll under-tax the more efficient cars but I don't necessarily see this as a problem.

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amanaplanacanal 7 months ago | parent [-]

Not for EV's. Which is why my state has been researching the move from a fuel tax to one based on mileage.

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benj111 7 months ago | parent [-]

My current favourite pet policy (UK) is to introduce a zero rate tax band on energy, to help those least well off, and have a higher band beyond some average consumption.

You encourage people to use less, and also tax things such as EVs that use more electricity.

Of course it doesn't quite capture everything discussed though.

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Rebelgecko 7 months ago | parent [-]

There was a proposal to do income based utility bills in California. It was unpopular for a lot of reasons, one of which was that it would make ICE cars cheaper to fuel than EVs for most people

	▲	benj111 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Well this is conceptually a tax on marginal electricity use. you'd also have to pair it with a commitment to making IC use more expensive than marginal electricity use.

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Gud 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Why not just tax the fuel?

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bzzzt 7 months ago | parent [-]

The Netherlands already has one of the highest fuel taxes in the world. There's pushback from fuel station owners near the borders because many people fill up their cars abroad.

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GrzegorzWidla 7 months ago | parent [-]

Also the Netherlands is projected to become the first country in the world with EV sales reaching 99%.

	▲	bzzzt 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		I really wonder. I'd expect Norway to be there sooner. As for the Netherlands: there are significant grid capacity problems, EV tax is going up due to expiring subsidies (which will double road tax for EVs in about 3 years) and lots of people seem the be very conservative and cling to their ICE cars because as everyone knows it's vital you can drive for 800km without taking a break. Of course, all can be solved by prohibiting people from buying a non-EV. It just means a lot of people won't be able to own a car anymore. I'm not quite sure how that would work out politically.