More on Obama's no new taxes promiseFollow

So...what's up with everyone jumping on varus' posts, that which seems to keep this place going these days, and then rating him in to oblivion?

Because people are bored like I am. I'm not seriously arguing with Smash about the feasibility of taxing by miles, because I think it could be reasonably done. I'm just interested in how he'll argue the point.

So, are they going to send someone out to my house once a year to record my car mileage, or are they going to force me to drive into town, and display my vehicle to the local Secretary of State official?

Uh... how exactly?

If you pay taxes on the gasoline, unless you are stealing the gasoline, you are always paying taxes on every bit of gasoline you purchase to use.

If you pay taxes based on your reported mileage on your vehicle, you either lie when reporting it, or you can have a disabled vehicle like mine that doesn't report correctly.

So what's easier... lying about mileage used, or stealing gasoline to avoid taxes?

How do you cheat a tax on gasoline? You buy gas and get charged a tax. Where is there room to cheat? For an odometer, half of the vehicles I've driven have had it break at some point, admittedly they were older cars, but still, how would you deal with this?

really? that would be annoying.


Edited, May 13th 2009 7:37pm by Xsarus

If you pay taxes based on your reported mileage on your vehicle, you either lie when reporting it, or you can have a disabled vehicle like mine that doesn't report correctly.

So what's easier... lying about mileage used, or stealing gasoline to avoid taxes?

Stealing gasoline would be far easier. People don't, however, because it's not worth the risk. Do you see where this is going? The amount of people who would go through the effort to disable an odometer to avoid this tax is lower than the amount of people who would siphon gasoline from other cars.

Would some people? Of course. Some people steal things to avoid to paying for them. Some people work without record keeping to avoid paying income tax. 99% of people wouldn't.

How do you cheat a tax on gasoline? You buy gas and get charged a tax. Where is there room to cheat? For an odometer, half of the vehicles I've driven have had it break at some point, admittedly they were older cars, but still, how would you deal with this?



Create a new industry that monitors and repairs odometers, like smog checks. They will require licenses and inspections themselves. On the one hand you create a new business opportunity, on the other you create more government oversight.

Edited, May 14th 2009 12:54am by BoondockSaint

Well, I wouldn't be against it. But I would find it incredibly annoying.

They'd force me to fix my car I've driven a 400USD throw away car for the last 8 years for a reason. (I'm cheap).

Couldn't he just pay in exact change and never have to worry about big brother?

Ah. Why? And still, I stick by what I said. Why love to have someone to bash on and rate him down constantly so that he can't post?

I don't love to have him around to bash on. The level of discourse he generates is uninteresting and lazy (and I am including most of the responses to him, not just his own posts). I don't like a forum where every point of an argument has to be explained in painstaking, childlike explicitness.

So, virus, what'd ya do to get yourself banned this time?