A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue

[Moonglow]

In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being able to monitor their every move.

"Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance management at the Nevada Department of Transportation. "It was not something people wanted."

As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website: "It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged tracking devices.... There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep records of individuals' everyday comings and goings."

Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles a car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time. If you can do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.

A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue - latimes.com

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

Like the pro drug testing crowd? Or the background and financial report to get a job crowd?

 

[Flopper]

In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being able to monitor their every move.

"Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance management at the Nevada Department of Transportation. "It was not something people wanted."

As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website: "It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged tracking devices.... There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep records of individuals' everyday comings and goings."

Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles a car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time. If you can do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.

A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue - latimes.com

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law. Currently, electric cars get a free pass when it comes to collecting gas taxes and to a lesser extent hybrids vesicles. so using miles driven would seem to be a fairer method of collecting road taxes.

 

[Desperado]

Do you think they would end the Federal Gas Tax in favor of this system?

That's what they are trying to do. As gas powered cars get better mileage and electric cars start to catch on, the gas tax brings in less and less revenue. The government can't allow that.

why not just tax electric cars up front when purchased......?

target them like smokers....

How about just eliminating the tax incentives for Electric cars?

 

[Flopper]

Do you think they would end the Federal Gas Tax in favor of this system?

That's what they are trying to do. As gas powered cars get better mileage and electric cars start to catch on, the gas tax brings in less and less revenue. The government can't allow that.

why not just tax electric cars up front when purchased......?

target them like smokers....

Because we try to collect the most tax dollars from those that use the roads the most. A method of taxing based on gallons of fuel used or miles driven attempts to do this.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Simplest solution would be to harden the odometer, and have people pay on milage at the time they re-register the vehicle. hardnening the odometer would restritct tampering to only a few tech wonks, and if the penalties are bad enough it may make it not worth it.

That might be a viable alternative to the federal gas tax, but it won't work for a state gas tax. Just because at the time of my registration renewal I may have driven 13,000 miles, it's highly unlikely I drove all of those 13,000 miles in my own state. In fact, I frequently drive outside of Nevada, to California, Arizona, and Utah, for work using my own car because the mileage pay is a nice little bonus. Why should I pay the State of Nevada tax on driving 13,000 miles over the period of a year when 4,000 of those miles may not have even been driven on their roads?

Why should I pay a sales tax when I visit another state if I don't live there?

Because there is no perfect system.

Because you're in their states using their services. You're making an apple to oranges comparison with what I said.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

That's what they are trying to do. As gas powered cars get better mileage and electric cars start to catch on, the gas tax brings in less and less revenue. The government can't allow that.

why not just tax electric cars up front when purchased......?

target them like smokers....

Because we try to collect the most tax dollars from those that use the roads the most. A method of taxing based on gallons of fuel used or miles driven attempts to do this.

then just place the tracking boxes solely in the 'green' electric cars.....everyone else is already paying a Fed tax of $.18 for every gallon of gas they buy...

do you have a problem with that.....?

 

[Flopper]

why not just tax electric cars up front when purchased......?

target them like smokers....

Because we try to collect the most tax dollars from those that use the roads the most. A method of taxing based on gallons of fuel used or miles driven attempts to do this.

then just place the tracking boxes solely in the 'green' electric cars.....everyone else is already paying a Fed tax of $.18 for every gallon of gas they buy...

do you have a problem with that.....?

I think it would be expensive and not worth the effort until we have a lot more electric cars. Currently there is less than 1 electric car for every 1000 petroleum fueled vehicle. IMHO, the cost of the boxes, data links, and processing costs can't be justified at this time.

 

[Spoonman]

Do you think they would end the Federal Gas Tax in favor of this system?

not a chance. the will just add additional revenue for them to pull from. as cars become more fuel efficient they need a way to make up for the loss

 

[Vox]

oh, sure. more big brother in our life - and all for our benefits only.

as red light cameras

 

[Vox]

In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being able to monitor their every move.

"Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance management at the Nevada Department of Transportation. "It was not something people wanted."

As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website: "It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged tracking devices.... There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep records of individuals' everyday comings and goings."

Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles a car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time. If you can do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.

A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue - latimes.com

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law. Currently, electric cars get a free pass when it comes to collecting gas taxes and to a lesser extent hybrids vesicles. so using miles driven would seem to be a fairer method of collecting road taxes.

well, but I see it as a problem. you allow tracking the car - and the pandora box is opened.
NO

 

[MikeK]

If the purpose of these monitoring devices is that of facilitating more efficient traffic control I would voluntarily accept installation only if a law were passed making it a criminal offense (with a minimum one year imprisonment penalty) to employ or reveal the data it generates for any other purpose.

I am confident that proviso would prevent any bureaucrat from misusing or allowing misuse of the data.

hahahaha.....'confident'......hahahaha......

Yes. Confident.

If you were a bureaucrat in a position to misuse that data, what would motivate you to risk a prison sentence for doing it? You'd really need to be either stupid or masochistically suicidal.

I will assume there would be one or two nitwits who might do it, but I can't imagine why. The only reason why there is so much corruption and abuse of citizens' rights by bureaucrats is there are no serious penalties for it. And that is the problem.

I was very surprised to learn the corrupt mayor of Detroit has been sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison. You may rest assured that action will cause a lot of politicians to walk a straight line. Not all. But a lot.

 

[ba1614]

In Nevada, where about 50 volunteers' cars were equipped with the devices not long ago, drivers were uneasy about the government being able to monitor their every move.

"Concerns about Big Brother and those sorts of things were a major problem," said Alauddin Khan, who directs strategic and performance management at the Nevada Department of Transportation. "It was not something people wanted."

As the trial got underway, the ACLU of Nevada warned on its website: "It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged tracking devices.... There is no need to build an enormous, unwieldy technological infrastructure that will inevitably be expanded to keep records of individuals' everyday comings and goings."

Nevada is among several states now scrambling to find affordable technology that would allow the state to keep track of how many miles a car is being driven, but not exactly where and at what time. If you can do that, Khan said, the public gets more comfortable.

A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue - latimes.com

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law. Currently, electric cars get a free pass when it comes to collecting gas taxes and to a lesser extent hybrids vesicles. so using miles driven would seem to be a fairer method of collecting road taxes.

I trusted the irs not to target political enemies of the president too.

 

[ba1614]

If the purpose of these monitoring devices is that of facilitating more efficient traffic control I would voluntarily accept installation only if a law were passed making it a criminal offense (with a minimum one year imprisonment penalty) to employ or reveal the data it generates for any other purpose.

I am confident that proviso would prevent any bureaucrat from misusing or allowing misuse of the data.

hahahaha.....'confident'......hahahaha......

Yes. Confident.

If you were a bureaucrat in a position to misuse that data, what would motivate you to risk a prison sentence for doing it? You'd really need to be either stupid or masochistically suicidal.

I will assume there would be one or two nitwits who might do it, but I can't imagine why. The only reason why there is so much corruption and abuse of citizens' rights by bureaucrats is there are no serious penalties for it. And that is the problem.

I was very surprised to learn the corrupt mayor of Detroit has been sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison. You may rest assured that action will cause a lot of politicians to walk a straight line. Not all. But a lot.

lol now that's ironic, the guy with the Guy Fawkes mask trusts the government to do the right thing after all the abuse of power by our government has been shown to be taking place.

 

[Spiderman]

I won't be surprised when a sidewalk tax is added and we all have to wear ankle monitors so we can be taxed per step on a public sidewalk.

 

[Seawytch]

Black boxes' are in 96% of new cars

 

[ba1614]

I won't be surprised when a sidewalk tax is added and we all have to wear ankle monitors so we can be taxed per step on a public sidewalk.

Don't give them any ideas.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Because we try to collect the most tax dollars from those that use the roads the most. A method of taxing based on gallons of fuel used or miles driven attempts to do this.

then just place the tracking boxes solely in the 'green' electric cars.....everyone else is already paying a Fed tax of $.18 for every gallon of gas they buy...

do you have a problem with that.....?

I think it would be expensive and not worth the effort until we have a lot more electric cars. Currently there is less than 1 electric car for every 1000 petroleum fueled vehicle. IMHO, the cost of the boxes, data links, and processing costs can't be justified at this time.

so now you're hedging...you probably realize that the sales of 'green' cars would plummet and that would make the plan worthless.....only power-hungry politicians are salivating over this mileage tracking idea....

force is the key government element here.....in fact every tax is forced upon you - paying it is not voluntary.....but when they add the other components into the mix... like surveillance.... this force can become a very negative thing....and completely change the lives of Amercians...

such as....one of the Left's goal is to eventually have everyone live in 'stack 'em and pack 'em' housing in designated city areas and limit anyone from living in the suburbs or countryside and limit fuel consumption by providing only mass trans for the masses.....for this they need to control your car and limit the freedom a car gives you...

once they can track your mileage and location......think of the controls they could impose.....such as simply charging an exhorbitant tax rate above a certain mileage limit.....this would have the effect of limiting your travel to only local areas....and for many it would cause them to give up their costly gas guzzlers and just use mass transportation...

new technology is great but not when it controls you....we need to keep it out of the hands of tax-imposing power-hungry politicians...

 

[martybegan]

This system is expensive and will not only cost drivers for the extra miles they drive, but the cost of the system to be installed on cars would be costly also. I have to admit, many of our politicians are just brain dead. Instead of looking for a very simple solution, they need to come up with this ridiculously complex plan which most people will be against anyway.

Now let's all think very hard here. If they were to get rid of the gasoline tax altogether but still wanted to tax something that corresponds to a person's use of our roads, what would be the most logical thing to tax?

Well, I'm not a rocket scientist, but to keep things simple, I would tax tires.

Taxing purchases made over longer periods is tough due to the incentive to get around the tax, i.e. bootleg tires.

Buying gas is a thing you do every few days to every few weeks. People don't want to go through the hassle of cheating out the taxman on frequent purchases, too much of a hassle, to many opprotunities to get caught. But at the typical frequency people change tires there is more of an incentive to hit the black market.

Simplest solution would be to harden the odometer, and have people pay on milage at the time they re-register the vehicle. hardnening the odometer would restritct tampering to only a few tech wonks, and if the penalties are bad enough it may make it not worth it.

Disconnecting the odometer on most cars takes less than three minutes. Changing it is only slightly harder. (Many times, a simple ECM swap will do it.)

With current odometers this would not be feasible, but if you work one into the programming of the computer, and maybe do a few other things, it would be more work for 99% of the people to change it than to just pay the damn tax.

 

[martybegan]

In addition to a tire tax, let there be a battery tax for electric cars to offset the decrease in gasoline tax.

The whole point of the consumption taxes on tires and batteries is to eliminate the need for a black box surveillance device.

There has to be a way to make an odometer tamper resistant enough so that the cost fo futzing with it is more than the cost of the yearly tax.

Nope. Cannot be done, short of the odometer costing more than the car!

Cost is always an issue with this, but costing more than the car MAY be a bit of hyperbole (just a tad).

 

[Flopper]

I don't get more comfortable. Who can trust the government to not use the data to spy on you, particularly after the NSA revelations?

I'm sure the "if you have nothing to hide" candy ass crowd will roll over for this one too.

I don't see this being a privacy issue as long as the black box only uses gps to calculate miles driven and does not transmit gps coordinates. This can easily be written into the law. Currently, electric cars get a free pass when it comes to collecting gas taxes and to a lesser extent hybrids vesicles. so using miles driven would seem to be a fairer method of collecting road taxes.

well, but I see it as a problem. you allow tracking the car - and the pandora box is opened.
NO

If the boxes only contain what is needed to determine mileage, I don't see that as a problem. Tracking, and reporting locations would require a lot more technology than just recording how much you drive a year.