[Vwdiesel] New Fuel Source

[Keith Family]

[Quote] There are probably so few doing this that the cost of 
setting up a bureaucracy to collect the tax would probably cost 
more than the tax collected. [Unquote]

When did lack of need or logic ever prevent a government program 
being instituted?

For most of us the only thing keeping the government from taxing 
biofuels a perception in the public that this is "alternate 
energy" and needs to be encouraged for it's own merits.   Of 
course no thought at all in that statement that alternate energy 
might be instituted or survive by it's own financial advantages. 
Or that by defering tax on biofuels (read subsidizing) we might 
be fostering an erroneous advantage to a fuel source that might 
be biologically (and perhaps financially) unsustainable.

Don't get me wrong in this statement.   I revel in the "tax free 
niche" that diesel biofuels currently reside in.   But if all 
road use could somehow be taxed according to actual "wear" on the 
road (at least this was the original road use tax thinking) then 
miles times the weight of the vehicle might be a more equitable 
tax computation?   Those who use more pay more.

How about this?   All fuels tax free, then pay the weight of your 
car times the annual mileage times a factor and pay the road use 
tax annually in April.

Of course with this scheme hybrid vehicles would be taxed a bit 
more since they weigh a bit more for the same passenger/miles. 
Ditto those electric plug-in vehicles.    And trucks would pay a 
lot more since their road use is mostly weight and distance and 
they might lose the fuel economies of scale they currently enjoy 
with their larger turbocharged diesel engines.   But - and this 
is the big advantage - our road infrastructure depreciation would 
be matched by the tax.   And the tax income to the government 
would be automatically indexed to increased use of the roads. 
Depending on the tax factor, we could have road infrastructure 
the envy of the world!  (or bumpy cart paths as the electorate 
desires)

There is a perception in our society vis-a-vis our government 
that we all need to be "managed" somehow.   And in many places 
the current "tax free" status of bio-derived road fuels falls in 
this thinking.   Like we don't know what's in our own enlightened 
self interest but need to be "pushed" to someone else's perceived 
result.

I'd rather try - and fail - and learn something from it - than be 
told "the right way."   Something to the effect that "Those that 
follow the crowd get no further than the crowd?"

But that's me.

Best,
Joe