Most politicians don’t tell voters five days before an election that they are planning to raise taxes, but when you are a Democrat in one-party California, you don’t worry as much about the outcome.
The problem with Xavier Becerra’s mileage tax is that it will not do anything for the residents of California and will be as invasive a tax as has ever been conceived.
In Becerra’s perpetual non-committal style, he didn’t actually say that he would push for a mileage tax, but instead said everything should be on the table.
One thing is certain: What’s not on the table is a tax cut.
Mr. Becerra told the interviewer in his statement, “Our roads aren’t maintained just by some magic wand. We have to pay for it.”
That is evident to California drivers, because we pay an exorbitant gas tax, which supposedly is to raise money to pay for the maintenance of our roads.
According to the Tax Foundation, Becerra can proudly say that California is #1 in something: We have the highest gasoline and diesel taxes of any state in the nation.
That might keep Californians happy if we experienced a commensurate improvement in the quality of the roads we are paying to keep in good repair.
But according to Construction Coverage, California has the third-highest number of major roadways in poor condition.
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Think about that. We have some of the best weather of any state in the nation. Other states have roads that are exposed to extreme variations in temperature, plus snow and ice. And yet our roads are worse than theirs.
One must ask: Where is the money from the gas tax being spent?
Talk about “affordability.” The people who would be hit with Becerra’s new mileage tax would be the people least able to afford it. They often have the longest drives, because to acquire a place to live, they must move further away from their work and thus drive many more miles.
The big question is how this tax would be administered. There are only two ways.
One way is the honor system. You would be asked to fill out a form annually stating how many miles you had driven during the past year. It could be part of your annual tax filing on your income tax return. There would have to be a separate filing for each vehicle.
The other way is a meter system, with a device in your car that would report directly to the state how many miles you have driven.
The state wouldn’t pay for the meter. You would. The state would promise not to collect information about where you have driven — just how far you had gone.
Would you trust that? Because I certainly don’t. Mileage meters would just be another way for the state to intrude into our lives — and only for the purpose of taking more money from us.
Here is a suggestion for Mr. Becerra. Before he starts making suggestions about new taxes, why doesn’t he investigate why we have the highest gas taxes in the country and the third-worst roads?
He should find out whether these excessive gas taxes are going toward road maintenance, or toward high-speed rail and other Gavin Newsom boondoggles.
Or perhaps he could explain what is going to happen when his rich friends with electric vehicles find out that they have avoided the gas tax only to face another tax instead.
Just think: If Becerra is coming up with new taxes before an election, how much worse will it be if he is in office and has legislators and lobbyists trying to convince him to come up with more money.
You can be sure he’ll find something else to tax.
Bruce Bialosky, a former presidential appointee, is a certified public accountant specializing in taxes.
The post Xavier Becerra didn’t even wait until the election to ogle new taxes appeared first on New York Post.
