Could this work in the US?

[dweller]

Owners of gas-guzzling cars to be hit by five-fold tax increase

By Severin Carrell
29 May 2005
Motorists who drive fuel-hungry BMWs, people
carriers and Range Rovers face a five-fold increase
in road tax under radical plans to combat Britain's
spiralling greenhouse gas emissions.

The proposals are being studied by transport and
environment ministers after it emerged that car
buyers are ignoring warnings about the dangers of
climate change by increasingly choosing luxury cars,
larger MPVs and 4x4s with large, powerful engines.

The Government's influential energy conservation
agency, the Energy Saving Trust (EST), has told
ministers the only way to force motorists to buy
"green" cars is to introduce a new top rate of road
tax as high as £900 a year.

The new tax - more than five times the current rate
of £165 a year for petrol engines - would have a
major impact, by catching many popular larger
family cars such as the Vauxhall Sharan or Ford
Galaxy people carriers.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/story.jsp?story=642355

people carriers? appears to be the term for minivans.

I believe that the danger imposed by larger vehicles (SUVs and the newer P/Us) to smaller cars ought to be reflected in the insurance costs of the larger vehicles, but a tax might discourage the popularity.

comments? or flame away i guess.

dp

[rodeodance]

1. "value added tax' is what i think it is called or 'luxery tax'--big

problem a few years back as I recall with this type of tax. Maybe lots of years.

[punpirate]

2. VAT (value-added tax) is...

... something else, entirely different.

The UK has had use taxes at time of sale for many, many years. These were instituted as post-WWII rationing eased, but when fuel availability was still pretty tight.

Those taxes were based on engine displacement, and went up to quite a bit on larger, more powerful, more expensive cars. It's one of the reasons why one sees some rather strange displacements on older British cars. 998cc, 1296cc, 1998cc, etc., to keep displacement below the tax increment break points. It was also the reason why one saw, at one time, so many small-displacement motorcycles with side-cars.

Sounds as if the Brits are going to modify that scheme to make it much more expensive than it has been in the recent past.

[flvegan]

3. Could it work? Sure, but that initiative would probably get

smacked down by the automakers' hefty campaign contributions, don't you think?

[bemildred]

4. Why screw around? Tax gasoline at $2 a gallon. nt

[Massacure]

6. All fossil fuels should be taxed on carbon content.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. The UK already taxes fuel at about $4 a gallon

It probably does keep demand down a little, but not that much. The problem is finding a way of allowing each person a certain amount of fuel use, while heavily taxing excess usage, to discourage it.

I think the only way to do this would be to increase the tax on fuel, with an increase in personal income tax allowances (or benefits for those not paying income tax), that is explained as being explicitly part of the fuel tax package. Then people will start to think about their fuel usage, and how they can decrease it.

[bemildred]

9. The combination of high fuel tax and credits for a baseline usage

sounds workable. One needs a big, nosy, and uncorrupt
government intervention to get the right effect.

I can assure you that relative to the USA "demand" in the
UK is down more than a little.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. Fuel use in the UK continued to rise despite increases in taxes

Tax (in pence) per litre of unleaded petrol (diesel is similar), April 1994 - April 2003:

35.9 39.4 42.5 45.7 53.8 57.7 60.7 57.1 57.0 57.5

Price

51.2 54.1 55.2 59.2 65.8 70.2 80.0 75.9 75.0 78.2

(source)

Road transport petrol & diesel consumption (millions of tonnes), 1994 - 2003:

35.8 35.4 36.8 37.2 37.0 37.3 35.5 36.1 37.7 37.6

(source)

So in 9 years, the tax increased by 60% (more than double the general price increase of 26%), and the price by 53%, but usage still crept up.

Perhaps US usage has gone up even more - but an increase in price has to be pretty steep to get people to use less (it happened a tiny bit in 1998, when the price went up 11%, and more so in 2000 - a 14% increase in price produced a public blockade of the oil refineries as a protest, and the government decreased the fuel tax as a result; after that, usage went back up again).

[bemildred]

15. I don't really know, I'm assuming you don't have as many SUVs and trucks,

of the 10-12 Miles per gallon sort, as we do, or whatever that
would be in Miles per liter.

I was not so much suggesting that usage had not gone up as that
you were operating from a much lower initial point, per capita,
so to speak.

My own experience here has been, as in the 70s, that there is a
good deal of reaction to high prices once they get high enough, and
I suspect we are seeing some reaction to higher prices already.

But time will tell us more.

[NNadir]

5. It's an excellent and necessary idea, I think.

One should pay a surcharge for these types of things equal to their external cost - pollution and waste.

This will not come to pass in the country of Mobutu capitalism - the US - but the US is destined to collapse anyway. It won't be around all that much longer to consume on credit cards. The bills are coming due.

[rfkrfk]

7. this would be most efficiently done, by states

Motor vehicle licensing related fees,
are best handled by states.

Progressive states, lets get going.
You havt to start somewhere.

[phantom power]

10. The Bush government would crush any state-by-state effort.

Or, at least they'll try like hell. Consider their reaction to California's attempt at strict emmissions laws. The Bushies declared it unconstitutional.

[rfkrfk]

11. emmission limits, properly done, are constitutional

properly done --> from the state legislature,
for example, Maine has reduced emmissions of CO2
by 75 percent, will take effect in
2070, 2525, 3535, or whatever.

The California 'problem' is that state 'air board'
has made a ruling that is 'supposedly' against state law,
...some 'entities' think that there is some 'federal'
issue here, and are in federal court.

States have clear jusisdiction over CO2.
States keep their own inventories
of 'greenhouse gasses', and would seem
competent in that matter.

[phantom power]

12. Agreed, but the neocons don't care :-)

They declare various things "constitutional" or "unconstitutional" as it pleases them. Fillibusters are "unconstitutional." Halting a state's recount via the Supreme Court is "constitutional."

I think the states should do it anyway, I'm just saying the current political climate is batshit insane, and Bushco will happily use their considerable power to try and crush any state-level attempts to actually solve the various huge problems facing our country, since any effective solutions don't mesh with their ideology.

[rfkrfk]

13. shrub et al, 'crush states', only where state legislatures fails to act

and then I think {Calfornia} that is still in the courts.

Ypu have to trust somebody, that somebody
is not the federal gov't.