Speaking from a Canadian perspective, fuel taxes are not road taxes. Only two jurisdictions levy motor fuel taxes in Canada - the federal goverment (about 40% of levies) and provinces/territories (about 60%). The federal government maintains a trivial portion of the roads in Canada, estimated at less than 1%. The provinces maintain a relatively small portion of roads - probably about 10%. The remainder are maintained by counties and municipalities, who have no fuel tax levies of any kind.
In short, most roads in Canada are maintained from the property tax base, and most motor fuel taxes go into the general revenue pot of senior levels of government. This also applies to most petroleum spill damage on land. Federal and provinical jurisdictions do fund health care. So, my take on it is that motor fuel taxes go primarily to health care to remediate damage caused by air and water pollution. In that case, I don't have a problem with EVs being exempted, as they cause no pollution at point of use, reducing negative impacts on health and health-care costs. There was a good report on this subject on several government websites a couple of years ago (Derkson and Shurvell), but now that municipalities are looking for some funding as a result, I notice that any links from search engines to it now come up 404. However, I kept a copy here, and I have just put it up on my site. If you want to read it, go to http://www.econogics.com/ev/fueltax.pdf The report indicates that federal government spends about 10% of its motor fuel tax take on road transportation expenditures of all kinds, while the remainder of road maintenance at municipal and provincial levels takes up about 75% of the amount collected by provinces and territories by their motor fuel taxes. (This does not mean that the provinces spend all this money on roads - much of the actual money spent comes from municipal property taxes.) In summary, most of the motor fuel taxes collected do not pay for road maintenance, and a significant portion of road maintenance is paid for by property owners, who are not necessarily vehicle owners. Darryl McMahon > If the road tax is *really* a road tax, then I guess EVs should, > arguably, be on the same playing field and pay the same taxes. If it is a > fuel tax, levied for some other reason, then tough and they should not pay > it, in my view. However, taxes are so co-mingled that I could not figure > it out quickly. Furthermore, I am not sure that electrcity isn't taxed or > otherwise burdened with bureaucracy as well, a tax that gasoline-burners > do not have to pay. > > > Darryl McMahon 48 Tarquin Crescent, Econogics, Inc. Nepean, Ontario K2H 8J8 It's your planet. Voice: (613)784-0655 If you won't look Fax: (613)828-3199 after it, who will? http://www.econogics.com/ Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
