Oregon to Tax Vehicle Mileage

Proving once again that a primary function of government is the obsessive pursuit of finding new ways to bleed the public by confiscatory taxation, the State of Oregon will implement a program to tax the odometers on vehicles. According to the plan, the taxing of mileage will work by having high tech devices installed in vehicles communicating with GPS satellites to calculate distances driven. With this scheme, they believe that they can tax highway usage and not have to tax fuel. The program was initiated because revenue from the fuel tax alone continues to decline due to hybrid and higher-mileage cars consuming less fuel.

The idea might have some merit, but I don't believe for a second that there will be any attempt to change the existing fuel tax structure, other than to increase it. So, in reality, the mileage tax program is just another way for black-hearted politicians to get their sticky hands into the wallets of citizens. In the future, along with a tax on fuel, a separate tax on miles driven will be imposed. Note that the state denies that both taxes will be collected at the same time for the same vehicle. Their contention should be accompanied with a warning that it is an expensive mistake to believe any tax collection agency that states there will be no double taxation. History indicates that politicians and tax collectors have a particular fondness for double, triple or greater multiple taxation. I suspect that the sinister tax creation department is already allocating money for research to devise ways to tax the air used for combustion in automobile engines.