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Friday, December 01, 2006

How to Lower the Gas Tax

“West Virginia motorists may be crossing the border to fill up their gas tanks next year. State tax commissioner Virgil Helton announced Wednesday that one of the state's motor fuel taxes will jump four and a half cents to eleven cents a gallon January first. That means motorists will be paying just shy of 50 cents per gallon in both state and federal taxes. The hike would make West Virginia eleventh in the nation for total gas taxes, up from 18th.” (Link)

It would be easy to whine about a higher gas tax (and it certainly is regressive, hurting the poor more than the better off) but what is a poor state to do?

Here are a few ideas:

1. Highway tolls – Those of you who live in areas other than south central WV may protest, but we’ve paid tolls for the WV turnpike since 1954, first to pay for the road itself, then to pay for its upkeep and for roads elsewhere in the state. It is a little unfair to expect southern West Virginias to pay $7.50 for a trip (and bear a larger burden of interstate upkeep) to Charleston and interstate travel to be free for all other destinations. I say reasonable tolls between Morgantown and Charleston, and between Huntington and Charleston could be used to lower the gas tax for everyone.
2. Tax major users – Since they do the most damage, have a road service charge added to owners of heavy commercial vehicles.

What are your ideas?

5 comments:

jedijawa said...

Well, if we model it like the Federal tax reforms that usually get put out by people like our current President then we would be sure to give the biggest tax breaks to the heaviest users. I'm not meaning commercial freight necessarily. I mean people who drive the biggest SUVs and Hummers and then anybody who can afford a BMW or Jaguar will get a year end tax credit since their vehicle uses less gas but they are obviously privileged persons.

Hey, I didn't say it would solve anything did I?

WV could do something similar to that tax that Ohio reactivated a few years ago where you are supposed to "self report" what you spent on good purchased outside of the state and pay taxes on that. Because the Ohio version covers eBay, vacations, and other stuff like that I would think that WV could modify theirs to also include gas. Thus, everyone should save those receipts when the drive to Ironton, Marietta, and Ashland for their gas. You wouldn't want to underpay your taxes.

Okay, I'll stop being a smartass now.

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