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Comment by Dangeranger | Hacker News Reader

Since people are finally realizing that electric vehicles can be superior to internal combustion engines, let’s talk about the real problem, how do we extract taxes from them? </s>

Seriously though, many states are all pushing these EV taxes at once. It almost makes you wonder if there is a concerted effort to make EVs less attractive. If you were a state representative, wouldn’t you first want to see tangible tax revenue decline before slapping a new tax on a thriving industry?

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Or perhaps they're realizing that, as EVs become more popular, the roads still need to be maintained and want to get ahead of the problem.

If every penny of the gas tax had to be spent on public road and infrastructure improvements, then there'd likely be broad based support for raising and - as with this proposal - expanding it as needed. However I'd be willing to bet that the majority if not the entirety of this tax increase will be spent on legacy pension bailouts instead.

According to this[1], Illinois state gas tax goes all over the place.

- 2½¢/gallon to the State Construction Account Fund.

- $420,000/month for boating safety

- $350,000/month to improve railroad crossings

- A "sufficient" amount to legal fees

- A "sufficient" amount for the administrator and supervisor

- $30 million/year for vehicle inspection

- "Amounts ordered paid by the Court of Claims"

- Fuel tax payments to other states

Then, of what's left...

- 17% to road construction

- 28% to a road and bridge program

- 27% to all municipalities, divided by population

- 9% to Cook County (Chicago)

- 10% to counties other than Cook, based on the number of drivers licenses issued

- 9% to the townships and road districts, based on the number of miles of road

Sounds like Illinois to me.

[1] https://idot.illinois.gov/Assets/uploads/files/Transportatio...

> - $350,000/month to improve railroad crossings

Unless I missed something, this number is incorrect according to https://www.icc.illinois.gov/railroad/

> Each month $3.5 million in state motor fuel tax receipts is transferred from the Motor Fuel Tax (MFT) fund to the Grade Crossing Protection Fund. This amount provides the GCPF with $39 million annually to be used for safety improvements at highway/rail crossings on local roads and streets.

Off topic, but this seemed like an enormous amount of money to me. And that doesn't seem to include crossings on state highways which come out of a different fund.

So the state of Illinois is spending at least $117,000 per day on railroad crossings. According to the same page, Illinois has 7,600 railroad crossings so that's at least $15 per day for every railroad crossing in the state.

Edit: I just reviewed your source and it is also cited at 3.5 million.

Why can’t the gas tax be extended to electricity provided to vehicles (ie superchargera) rather than ownership of EV?

That would be very difficult to enforce. Most miles driven by most EVs come from home charging. That’s usually just plugging into a standard 240V outlet (or even a standard 120V outlet like you’d use to charge a phone). There’s rarely any separate metering.

More feasible would be some sort of per-mile tax based on the car’s odometer at the end of each year.

gas taxes do not even come close to paying for road maintenance.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/05/debunking-the...

Not if your lobbiests don't have that same concern.

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