Your Dirivng Habits to be Taxed (Literally)

Show of hands from everyone who would like to pay a tax for miles driven above and beyond your current property and road taxes. No, really, it’s O.K. – please raise your hands. Hmm… I thought so.

And yet those crazy kids in the state legislature are considering just such a tax. Senate Bill 1077, authored by State-Senator-turned-Congressional-candidate Mark DeSaulnier, would require the state’s Transportation Agency to develop a pilot program by January 1, 2016, to “explore various methods for using a mileage-based fee (MBF) to replace the state's existing fuel excise tax.”

Bottom line… SB 1077 wants to put a GPS-like device in your vehicle so it can track how many miles you drive and tax you according to same. Current suggestions range from a penny per mile to a dime per mile. Plus the Bay Area is a leading candidate for introduction of this pilot program.

Hit the brakes! Haven’t we heard this all before? Yes. This is the same screwball proposal that came from the One Bay Area Plan (a scheme foisted by ABAG and MTC), only now, it’s being proposed as a state law. And the cost?  It’s estimated to be over $1 million annually through 2016-17, to conduct lab and field testing of equipment and to implement the pilot program.

Ironic factoid: the money will come from the state’s Highway Account.

As has been noted, the state’s excise tax on fuels was originally created to serve as a substitute user fee for the construction, maintenance, and operation of the transportation system. However, as revenue-shifting became more sophisticated, more and more of this revenue was siphoned off for buses/light rail/BART-types of mass transit projects and therefore, funding languished for highway and roadway construction and (perhaps more importantly) for upgrade and maintenance.

Ah, but here’s the fun part: What’s being claimed is “the fuel excise tax is unsustainable. Today's varied vehicle marketplace is leading to significant distortions in the market.” (Huh?) Translation: With improved M.P.G. for virtually all vehicles and the sale of fuel efficient vehicles continuing to trend upwards, the state is not raking in the revenue it once did from the fuel excise tax… so CA needs more money. (Keep in mind, there’s no guarantee whatsoever that a MBF will be used for roadway projects.)

Perhaps the most controversial impediment to the MBF (and, as you might guess, there are many) has been the concern raised about the government being able to track a person's driving behavior and movement. If the GPS in your vehicle can tell how many miles you’ve driven and report it to the state for taxation purposes; it can also report where you’ve driven.

SB 1077 has already been approved by the Senate and now begins the meat grinder of the Assembly.