Indiana penalty for having a Hybrid

[lt1gmc]

Indiana in their infinite wisdom decided Hybrid owners are not paying their fair share of road tax because they get such great mileage, so ALL hybrids have to pay an additional $50 every year at registration time.

Problem is they didn't do ANY research or they would know that a 2009 GM Hybrid still get less mileage than a typical new gasoline car.
Also how about the owner of a 2018 Silverado "Hybrid" that is rated 16 city, 21 highway?

Both instances more than pay their fair share of road tax thru fuel purchases.

 

[Doubeleive]

so your annual fuel savings for buying a crappy gutless little sedan with no room for a family is only $50.00? interesting

 

[swathdiver]

Indiana in their infinite wisdom decided Hybrid owners are not paying their fair share of road tax because they get such great mileage

No, it's because they are losing out on tax revenue from gasoline. A paltry sum compared with how much we pay in taxes for each gallon of gas. Vote to change the law or with your feet to another state.

 

[jsoltren]

How do electric vehicles factor into this? Do the boneheads who make the laws in Indiana even realize that not all automobiles run on fossil fuels?

Did they figure that people who live close to the border could just register their cars in a neighboring state?

 

[swathdiver]

How do electric vehicles factor into this? Do the boneheads who make the laws in Indiana even realize that not all automobiles run on fossil fuels?

Well, the law (tax) is a reaction to hybrid and electric car owners not paying taxes through reduced or no fuel purchases. Not paying their "fair share".

 

[dnt1010]

It is pretty sad that they are penalizing people in the small hybrid cars. These people are pretty much driving a "penalty box" anyway, are they not already being punished enough? LOL. I do agree that these gas guzzling trucks are NOT the problem with decreased gas tax revenues and they should not have extra taxes added just because they have a Hybrid badge. Trucks should be excluded IMHO. I contribute a bunch of gas tax revenue at 17mpg LOL. Politicians just seem to have a knack for coming up with creative ways to reach into your pocket.

 

[swathdiver]

It is pretty sad that they are penalizing people in the small hybrid cars. These people are pretty much driving a "penalty box" anyway, are they not already being punished enough? LOL. I do agree that these gas guzzling trucks are NOT the problem with decreased gas tax revenues and they should not have extra taxes added just because they have a Hybrid badge. Trucks should be excluded IMHO. I contribute a bunch of gas tax revenue at 17mpg LOL. Politicians just seem to have a knack for coming up with creative ways to reach into your pocket.

The folks who can afford hybrid and electric cars are for the most part, quite well off. It's their choice to drive such a car and they probably got a tax incentive to buy it from the last guy just as his predecessor gave tax credits to those who bought trucks.

I dislike and consider it an evil when government divides up citizens and elevates one group over another to suit an agenda with few exceptions.

Taxing fuel is the simplest way to me to raise revenue for transportation. With more technology, such as a transponder, paying taxes to drive here and there would be more appropriate. Having said that, the people we send to Congress and work in government now are always figuring a way to get more from us, generally speaking.

We have to send representatives who will say no and limit the invisible hand that continually absconds with our wealth. Working until April or May to begin seeing our annual take home is obscene. Our ancestors went to war for far less. Even the Lord expects less from us, just a tenth of all thine increase.

 

[jsoltren]

Well, the law (tax) is a reaction to hybrid and electric car owners not paying taxes through reduced or no fuel purchases. Not paying their "fair share".

Sorry if I was misunderstood. My question should have been phrased: "if there is a $50 fee in Indiana to register a hybrid car, is there also a fee for a pure electric car?" The answer is: "yes, there is a fee, and it is $100, not $50".

I thought this was just Indiana, but no, there are a whole rash of states who are doing this. See: http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/new-fees-on-hybrid-and-electric-vehicles.aspx

The folks who can afford hybrid and electric cars are for the most part, quite well off.

This is really the heart of it. It's a way to get back at all those Tesla drivers. Look at them, driving their $110k electric cars, not paying their road taxes. We need to get them! (There is sarcasm here, if you couldn't tell.)

I own a Nissan Leaf. It's an electric car, but apart from that, it's basically a Nissan Versa with a body kit.

The reason these taxes rub me the wrong way is because they remind me of many (failed) attempts to tax "those damn bicyclists" for "taking up the road and not paying their fair share". (I am a cyclist, and against road use taxes for cyclists, since we actually create roadway capacity by not driving.)

I see taxes as serving to incentivize or discourage certain behavior.

Quick back of the envelope: 15k mi/year, 25 MPG sedan, $0.28/gallon fuel tax (source: https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/gas-tax-fuels-higher-fuel-prices-indiana-147951/). That comes to $168/year.

I'd be more in favor of a use tax that was proportional to the wear and tear that your vehicle puts on the road. So, to make up numbers, a Camry owner would pay $50, someone driving a Freightliner Sportchassis would pay like $500, and everyone would pay something in between. If you're willing to prove to the state that you didn't drive as much (using, say, odometer recordings at annual state inspections) you could receive a state tax credit for the difference. So if (like me) your Yukon XL 2500 only sees about 4000 miles of use per year, you don't pay as much as someone who drives 30k/year.

The incentives ought to be: drive less, drive a smaller vehicle, drive a more efficient vehicle.

I don't know how many folks here own both a tiny EV and a heavy duty SUV. Perhaps my views are not popular here. But what I've proposed seems fair to me.

 

[Rocket Man]

They need to find a way to tax by the mile driven. Our roads and highways are falling apart due to decreasing fuel tax revenue. As well as make bicycles pay for the cost of converting vehicle lanes into bike lanes like the way they do here. Damn bicycles are getting nice new paved lanes that used to be for cars and trucks and the vehicle lanes are going to hell. But $50 per year? $4 a month? That's hardly worth complaining about. As far as people living next to a border and registering their vehicles on the other side, in Washington state the registration is about 6 times what we pay in Oregon so they were doing that until Washington caught wind of it and started pulling over drivers commuting across the Columbia river into Oregon with Oregon plates and fining them if their DL showed a WA address but their registration was OR. But no way should gas guzzlers pay more per mile, or hybrids pay more per mile either. It used to be somewhat fair.

 

[homesick]

Well, the law (tax) is a reaction to hybrid and electric car owners not paying taxes through reduced or no fuel purchases. Not paying their "fair share".

Taxed wen you earn it.
Taxed when you save it.
Taxed when you spend it.
Taxed buffet style.
Taxed a la carte style.
Taxed if you use it.
Taxed if you don't use it.

Do these guys not pay attention? How the h!!! are they surprised by this?

joe