PRC Is Heading Towards Disaster As EV Owners Dodge Taxes

The Sacramento Bee, which has long been an advocate over the People’s Republik Of California forcing the peasants into electric vehicles, has Concerns over EV owners dodging taxes

California electric vehicle owners are dodging taxes — and disaster is looming | Opinion

California’s electric vehicle owners, who are disproportionately wealthy, are also tax dodgers. Ironically, the money the state should be collecting would battle — of all things — climate change, by funding transit and transportation projects.

The state has long funded transportation through a tax on gasoline, since its use was once ubiquitous. Electric vehicle owners get to skirt that tax. And because Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratically-controlled California Legislature haven’t found a substitute way to collect the necessary money, the taxes are now disproportionately falling onto lower-income residents.

For a governor who likes to crow about how progressive California’s tax structure is, he is not walking the walk when it comes to vehicles without gas tanks.

A train wreck is looming somewhere on the horizon on how the state maintains and improves its transportation system. If the state met its goals to dramatically shift our vehicle fleet to all-electric, half of this revenue source could be gone in 10 years, according to projections by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Got that? Government is mandating the sale of EVs. Rich folks (well, really, studies show the majority of EV buyers make between $150k to $300K. The uber rich aren’t driving them) and the few others who get EVs do not have to pay gas taxes because EVs do not use Evil fossil fuels which the PRC government is trying to get rid of. And, somehow this is dodging taxes, like someone with a Cayman Islands account or laundering it through a child with a deal in Ukraine. Seriously, this is the system that the Warmists pushed for and the government created. It reminds me of the whining when Obama raised the CAFE standards and more people shifted to hybrids, which meant lower gas tax revenue. But, the Warmists want it both ways.

For Sacramento and every region of the state, gas taxes are the primary source of money to maintain local roads. Sacramento County roads on average barely rate above “poor” as it is. Every Californian who abandoned the internal combustion engine simply makes the problem worse.

Wait, what? They did what the government wanted them to do, and will soon be forcing them to do and it made the problem worse? Perhaps the PRC should spend the taxpayer’s money wisely. What about all those billions and billions for the worthless bullet train?

“There are two uses of taxes,” said Christopher Thornberg, head of Beacon Economics. “One is for revenue, the other is to alter decisions for public policy purposes.”

Currently, the state’s gas tax is 60 cents a gallon, which generates about $8 billion annually for state and local transportation projects. The state has a stunning 31 million registered vehicles. Each car, on average, generates about $260 a year in taxes via gasoline to fuel the state’s transportation system.

In the short run, California could increase gas tax revenue by increasing the tax itself. There is “no way you are going to go all electric without high gas taxes,” said Thornberg, who, in his next breath, evaluated the politics of this approach.

And then what? As people switch it means fewer gas vehicles, which means lower revenue. It also means higher costs for products as the increases are passed along for things like food.

Of course, their other idea is a per-mile road tax, which means the government tracking drivers. It never occurs to them that government is creating the problem.

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