BUILD America 250 Act

[Max Rockatansky]

Section 1129 doesn't reference a mileage tax at all.  I would think the current administration would be decidedly against a Federal mileage tax given how hard they rebuked CARB's 2035 PHEV EPA waivers. 

Even here in California the state is just barely starting to study the concept of a mileage tax or $0.02-$0.04 per mile.  If a VMT reduction heavy state like this here is only in the study phase don't count on Federal mileage tax being a thing for decades to come. 

As an aside, I do find some amusement that conventional hybrids were omitted from Section 1129.  I bought a 2024 Corolla Hybrid not too long ago as a daily driver.  I did consider a  current generation Prius (a PHEV) but opted for the Corolla due to the MSRP difference.  It appears most of the incentives for owning a PHEV or full EV instead of a generic conventional hybrid have pretty much evaporated the past two years. 

[Rothman]

A once‑a‑year odometer reading has zero granularity -- no location, no jurisdiction, no facility type, no time‑of‑use.

Yet another strange sentence from you, when comparing an odometer/VMT tax to a fuel tax.

There's nothing strange about it -- an annual odometer reading is a single lump‑sum number. It has no information about where the miles were driven, which jurisdiction should receive revenue, what type of facility was used, or when the travel occurred. The fuel tax captures all of that implicitly because refueling behavior reflects actual use. That's the difference in granularity.

To beltway (v.):  To repeat a silly point as a questionable means of argument. ;D

Is this mileage tax talk something Beltway came up with or is there an actual section that mentioned it?  I scanned through the documents really quickly on lunch and the only thing I'm seeing kind of in the domain is the EV/PHEV fee in section 1129. 

No, I didn't invent it -- the VMT discussion comes from the fact that the bill increases the EV/PHEV fee (Section 1129) because EVs don't pay fuel tax. Any time Congress raises EV fees for that reason, the policy conversation inevitably turns to what replaces the fuel tax long‑term. That's why the odometer/VMT issue keeps coming up, even if the bill itself doesn't mandate one.

Psst.  He invented it.

[Beltway]

Psst.  He invented it.

The VMT point isn't about the bill text -- it's about the policy rationale behind EV fees. Whenever Congress adjusts EV fees because EVs don't pay fuel tax, the long‑term replacement question comes up. That's all I was pointing out.

[Rothman]

Psst.  He invented it.

The VMT point isn't about the bill text -- it's about the policy rationale behind EV fees. Whenever Congress adjusts EV fees because EVs don't pay fuel tax, the long‑term replacement question comes up. That's all I was pointing out.

Nah.  No, it wasn't. 

[Beltway]

Section 1129 doesn't reference a mileage tax at all.  I would think the current administration would be decidedly against a Federal mileage tax given how hard they rebuked CARB's 2035 PHEV EPA waivers. 
Even here in California the state is just barely starting to study the concept of a mileage tax or $0.02-$0.04 per mile.  If a VMT reduction heavy state like this here is only in the study phase don't count on Federal mileage tax being a thing for decades to come. 
As an aside, I do find some amusement that conventional hybrids were omitted from Section 1129.  I bought a 2024 Corolla Hybrid not too long ago as a daily driver.  I did consider a  current generation Prius (a PHEV) but opted for the Corolla due to the MSRP difference.  It appears most of the incentives for owning a PHEV or full EV instead of a generic conventional hybrid have pretty much evaporated the past two years. 

Right -- Section 1129 doesn't create a VMT tax. The point is that the EV/PHEV fee exists because EVs don't pay fuel tax. Any time Congress adjusts EV fees for that reason, the broader policy question of 'what replaces the fuel tax long‑term' comes up. That's why the VMT/odometer issue is part of the discussion even if the bill itself doesn't mandate one.

California studying VMT is exactly why the topic keeps coming up nationally -- states are trying to figure out what replaces the fuel tax as EV share grows. The federal bill doesn't mandate VMT, but it's part of the same long‑term conversation.

[Max Rockatansky]

I do believe at some point in the far future that a mileage tax is an inevitable outcome.  However, I don't think it will be a thing on the Federal level during the rest of my working life. 

Why not bring up on the topic in the states that are actually studying or proposing mileage taxes?  Daniel has brought it up on Pacific Southwest with his monthly cahighways.org news article threads several times.  Recently SANDAG backed off their mileage tax plans.

Someone correct me if they have an actual citation but I can't recall a single Federal proposal that overtly has VMT reductions as a stated goal.

[NE2]

Is this mileage tax talk something Beltway came up with or is there an actual section that mentioned it?  I scanned through the documents really quickly on lunch and the only thing I'm seeing kind of in the domain is the EV/PHEV fee in section 1129.   

It's something Beltwanker (Beltway/clanker) hallucinated.

[Beltway]

Is this mileage tax talk something Beltway came up with or is there an actual section that mentioned it?  I scanned through the documents really quickly on lunch and the only thing I'm seeing kind of in the domain is the EV/PHEV fee in section 1129. 

It's something Beltwanker (Beltway/clanker) hallucinated.

Nothing was hallucinated -- the point was simply that EV/PHEV fees exist because EVs don't pay fuel tax, and that's the same policy issue that always leads to VMT discussions.

There's also a distinct possibility that EV market share plateaus or declines, which would change the long‑term revenue‑replacement pressure, but the granularity issue remains either way.

[Max Rockatansky]

Is this mileage tax talk something Beltway came up with or is there an actual section that mentioned it?  I scanned through the documents really quickly on lunch and the only thing I'm seeing kind of in the domain is the EV/PHEV fee in section 1129. 

It's something Beltwanker (Beltway/clanker) hallucinated.

Nothing was hallucinated -- the point was simply that EV/PHEV fees exist because EVs don't pay fuel tax, and that's the same policy issue that always leads to VMT discussions.

There's also a distinct possibility that EV market share plateaus or declines, which would change the long‑term revenue‑replacement pressure, but the granularity issue remains either way.

Care to actually cite a source for all this supposed Federal talk about mileage taxes and VMT reductions?  I haven't found anything since my last reply. 

If you don't have anything maybe leave the folks on this board alone and take this up on Pacific Southwest.  It is pretty clear you're referring to items applicable almost exclusively to California.

[Beltway]

Nothing was hallucinated -- the point was simply that EV/PHEV fees exist because EVs don't pay fuel tax, and that's the same policy issue that always leads to VMT discussions.
There's also a distinct possibility that EV market share plateaus or declines, which would change the long‑term revenue‑replacement pressure, but the granularity issue remains either way.

Care to actually cite a source for all this supposed Federal talk about mileage taxes and VMT reductions?  I haven't found anything since my last reply. 
If you don't have anything maybe leave the folks on this board alone and take this up on Pacific Southwest.  It is pretty clear you're referring to items applicable almost exclusively to California.

The only point I'm making is that EV fees and VMT discussions share the same policy root: EVs don't pay fuel tax. That's been in federal reports long before California's programs. I'm not claiming the bill mandates VMT.

[Max Rockatansky]

Nothing was hallucinated -- the point was simply that EV/PHEV fees exist because EVs don't pay fuel tax, and that's the same policy issue that always leads to VMT discussions.
There's also a distinct possibility that EV market share plateaus or declines, which would change the long‑term revenue‑replacement pressure, but the granularity issue remains either way.

Care to actually cite a source for all this supposed Federal talk about mileage taxes and VMT reductions?  I haven't found anything since my last reply. 
If you don't have anything maybe leave the folks on this board alone and take this up on Pacific Southwest.  It is pretty clear you're referring to items applicable almost exclusively to California.

The only point I'm making is that EV fees and VMT discussions share the same policy root: EVs don't pay fuel tax. That's been in federal reports long before California's programs. I'm not claiming the bill mandates VMT.

Ahem...you've been cordially invited:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=37261.0

[vdeane]

A once‑a‑year odometer reading is still a very poor proxy for actual road use compared to the continuous‑measurement nature of the fuel tax.

Yet again you seem to be ignoring the point that politicians might not care.  In fact, many people probably see that as a feature, not a bug!  If you're a New Urbanist, having drivers pay a big lump sum would be a good thing because it would disincentivize driving.  If you're an architect of the surveillance state or associated with big tech, having every car outfitted with a GPS that's reporting your movements in order to capture that level of granularity is a wet dream of yours.  And if you're looking for an excuse to get more money into the highway trust fund without raising the gas tax, you'd be happy with any way that lets you increase the amount that people will pay without it being too obvious until after the fact (I think I've seen VMT tax proposals that had the per-mile rate as high as the tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike!).

So just because you might think that a VMT tax isn't good because of those reasons, doesn't mean that the Powers That Be agree with you.

Is this mileage tax talk something Beltway came up with or is there an actual section that mentioned it?  I scanned through the documents really quickly on lunch and the only thing I'm seeing kind of in the domain is the EV/PHEV fee in section 1129.   

Continuing to study it is mentioned (section 6004), but nothing on implementation other than the EV fee.

[Beltway]

Nothing was hallucinated -- the point was simply that EV/PHEV fees exist because EVs don't pay fuel tax, and that's the same policy issue that always leads to VMT discussions.
There's also a distinct possibility that EV market share plateaus or declines, which would change the long‑term revenue‑replacement pressure, but the granularity issue remains either way.

Care to actually cite a source for all this supposed Federal talk about mileage taxes and VMT reductions?  I haven't found anything since my last reply. 
If you don't have anything maybe leave the folks on this board alone and take this up on Pacific Southwest.  It is pretty clear you're referring to items applicable almost exclusively to California.

The only point I'm making is that EV fees and VMT discussions share the same policy root: EVs don't pay fuel tax. That's been in federal reports long before California's programs. I'm not claiming the bill mandates VMT.

Ahem...you've been cordially invited:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=37261.0

My focus is not there.

[NE2]

My Focus is not there.

We don't care what car you drive.

[Beltway]

A once‑a‑year odometer reading is still a very poor proxy for actual road use compared to the continuous‑measurement nature of the fuel tax.

Yet again you seem to be ignoring the point that politicians might not care.  In fact, many people probably see that as a feature, not a bug!  If you're a New Urbanist, having drivers pay a big lump sum would be a good thing because it would disincentivize driving.  If you're an architect of the surveillance state or associated with big tech, having every car outfitted with a GPS that's reporting your movements in order to capture that level of granularity is a wet dream of yours.  And if you're looking for an excuse to get more money into the highway trust fund without raising the gas tax, you'd be happy with any way that lets you increase the amount that people will pay without it being too obvious until after the fact (I think I've seen VMT tax proposals that had the per-mile rate as high as the tolls on the Pennsylvania Turnpike!).
So just because you might think that a VMT tax isn't good because of those reasons, doesn't mean that the Powers That Be agree with you.

I'm well aware of the "ubiquitous road pricing" concept -- the full GPS‑based, track‑every‑inch-of-the-way model. I'm a huge government skeptic, so I don't dismiss the possibility that some people would love that level of control. Am totally opposed to that idea.

But that's separate from the engineering reality. A tax system still has to be auditable, enforceable, fraud‑resistant, and administratively workable. A once‑a‑year odometer check doesn't meet any of those criteria. That's why every serious VMT pilot -- federal or state -- uses continuous measurement, not annual snapshots.

You can speculate about what certain ideological groups want, but the system still has to function in the real world. Motives don't override mechanics.

My Focus is not there.

We don't care what car you drive.

I don't and never have driven a Ford.

[Scott5114]

I think it'd probably be better to ... have some sort of IRS paperwork

I would triple the amount of IRS paperwork I had to do before I'd accept GPS tracking on my car.

And I own a business.

A tax system still has to be auditable, enforceable, fraud‑resistant, and administratively workable. A once‑a‑year odometer check doesn't meet any of those criteria.

Sure it does:
- Auditable: Someone from the DMV (or a proxy like a smog tech or tag agent) physically looks at your odometer when you renew your tag, thus auditing it.
- Enforceable: No odometer reading, no tag renewal. I've always been under the impression that it's possible to enforce out-of-date tags, even though Oklahoma half-assed it and Nevada more or less doesn't bother.
- Administratively workable: None of this would be administratively unworkable in either Nevada or Oklahoma (the former requires physical inspection of the car by smog techs in its two largest counties, and the latter has private tag agencies handling tag renewals, so the tag agent could simply view the odometer), so the other 48 states could do it simply by emulating whichever system is closest to their existing one.

In summary, if your state couldn't actually do this that's more of an indictment of your state than it is the concept. Maybe you should work on fixing that. Hell, I'm confident Oklahoma could pull it off—are you admitting your state sucks shit worse than Oklahoma?

I am addressing fraud separately because I don't think it's a real issue, and I'll tell you why. There have already been enough incentives to commit odometer fraud that it is more or less a solved problem. Anti-tamper odometers have been a thing for decades, and modern odometers are more or less an integer stored in a digital system, which is borderline impossible for a layperson to edit. "Layperson" is important there—no matter what, there will be someone trying to cheat any system. The key is to make it difficult enough that the average person won't bother, and at that point trying to trace down the dedicated cheaters isn't worth the ROI—you spend more on the investigation than you'd recover if they actually paid their fair share.

[Max Rockatansky]

My Focus is not there.

We don't care what car you drive.

The Fiesta was the better car anyway.  I had both a Focus and a Fiesta for work cars.  The Ford Europe build quality with the Fiesta was far superior. 

[kphoger]

... the policy conversation inevitably turns to what replaces the fuel tax long‑term.

Whenever ..., the long‑term replacement question comes up.

Any time ... the broader policy question of 'what replaces the fuel tax long‑term' comes up.

It wasn't inevitable.  You're the one who brought it up.  It's not in the congressional bill, and nobody was talking about it until you did.

I don't and never have driven a Ford.

Yes, it's already been established that you prefer to drive a second-generation post-facelift Buick LaCrosse.  No need to keep bringing it up.

[Max Rockatansky]

Most modern Buicks I've driven with touchscreens had redundant button controls.  GM was trying to appeal to the elderly, but hot damn they ended up appealing to me.   

[Beltway]

Any time ... the broader policy question of 'what replaces the fuel tax long‑term' comes up.

It wasn't inevitable.  You're the one who brought it up.  It's not in the congressional bill, and nobody was talking about it until you did.

It is the implied topic of the bill. Any time Congress touches the fuel tax, indexing, or revenue stabilization, the underlying question is what replaces the fuel tax long‑term. That's not me "bringing it up" -- it's the entire context of why these studies and pilot programs exist in the first place.

The bill doesn't have to spell out "VMT" or "replacement mechanism" for that to be the policy backdrop. Every CBO report, FHWA study, and TRB panel on fuel‑tax erosion points to the same issue: electrification is collapsing the revenue base, so Congress keeps circling back to the long‑term replacement question.

I don't and never have driven a Ford.

Yes, it's already been established that you prefer to drive a second-generation post-facelift Buick LaCrosse.  No need to keep bringing it up.

I don't "keep bringing it up" -- that would be someone else's esophagus that does that.

And I no longer own that vehicle.

[Beltway]

A tax system still has to be auditable, enforceable, fraud‑resistant, and administratively workable. A once‑a‑year odometer check doesn't meet any of those criteria.

Sure it does:
- Auditable: Someone from the DMV (or a proxy like a smog tech or tag agent) physically looks at your odometer when you renew your tag, thus auditing it.
- Enforceable: No odometer reading, no tag renewal. I've always been under the impression that it's possible to enforce out-of-date tags, even though Oklahoma half-assed it and Nevada more or less doesn't bother.
- Administratively workable: None of this would be administratively unworkable in either Nevada or Oklahoma (the former requires physical inspection of the car by smog techs in its two largest counties, and the latter has private tag agencies handling tag renewals, so the tag agent could simply view the odometer), so the other 48 states could do it simply by emulating whichever system is closest to their existing one.
In summary, if your state couldn't actually do this that's more of an indictment of your state than it is the concept. Maybe you should work on fixing that. Hell, I'm confident Oklahoma could pull it off—are you admitting your state sucks shit worse than Oklahoma?
I am addressing fraud separately because I don't think it's a real issue, and I'll tell you why. There have already been enough incentives to commit odometer fraud that it is more or less a solved problem. Anti-tamper odometers have been a thing for decades, and modern odometers are more or less an integer stored in a digital system, which is borderline impossible for a layperson to edit. "Layperson" is important there—no matter what, there will be someone trying to cheat any system. The key is to make it difficult enough that the average person won't bother, and at that point trying to trace down the dedicated cheaters isn't worth the ROI—you spend more on the investigation than you'd recover if they actually paid their fair share.

A once‑a‑year odometer check is a tag‑renewal procedure, not a viable replacement for the fuel tax. A real system has to satisfy auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability. An annual snapshot fails all four. You can't audit where miles were driven, so you can't allocate revenue across jurisdictions. Enforcement collapses the moment someone stops renewing tags or registers out‑of‑state. Digital odometers can still be altered by anyone with the right tools, and the system has no way to detect tampering between inspections. And a 50‑state tax mechanism can't depend on wildly different DMV regimes, inspection rules, or renewal practices. The fuel tax works because it's continuous; an annual reading isn't.

[Scott5114]

A tax system still has to be auditable, enforceable, fraud‑resistant, and administratively workable. A once‑a‑year odometer check doesn't meet any of those criteria.

Sure it does:
- Auditable: Someone from the DMV (or a proxy like a smog tech or tag agent) physically looks at your odometer when you renew your tag, thus auditing it.
- Enforceable: No odometer reading, no tag renewal. I've always been under the impression that it's possible to enforce out-of-date tags, even though Oklahoma half-assed it and Nevada more or less doesn't bother.
- Administratively workable: None of this would be administratively unworkable in either Nevada or Oklahoma (the former requires physical inspection of the car by smog techs in its two largest counties, and the latter has private tag agencies handling tag renewals, so the tag agent could simply view the odometer), so the other 48 states could do it simply by emulating whichever system is closest to their existing one.
In summary, if your state couldn't actually do this that's more of an indictment of your state than it is the concept. Maybe you should work on fixing that. Hell, I'm confident Oklahoma could pull it off—are you admitting your state sucks shit worse than Oklahoma?
I am addressing fraud separately because I don't think it's a real issue, and I'll tell you why. There have already been enough incentives to commit odometer fraud that it is more or less a solved problem. Anti-tamper odometers have been a thing for decades, and modern odometers are more or less an integer stored in a digital system, which is borderline impossible for a layperson to edit. "Layperson" is important there—no matter what, there will be someone trying to cheat any system. The key is to make it difficult enough that the average person won't bother, and at that point trying to trace down the dedicated cheaters isn't worth the ROI—you spend more on the investigation than you'd recover if they actually paid their fair share.

A once‑a‑year odometer check is a tag‑renewal procedure, not a viable replacement for the fuel tax. A real system has to satisfy auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability. An annual snapshot fails all four. You can't audit where miles were driven, so you can't allocate revenue across jurisdictions. Enforcement collapses the moment someone stops renewing tags or registers out‑of‑state. Digital odometers can still be altered by anyone with the right tools, and the system has no way to detect tampering between inspections. And a 50‑state tax mechanism can't depend on wildly different DMV regimes, inspection rules, or renewal practices. The fuel tax works because it's continuous; an annual reading isn't.

Since you're apparently not going to read anything I write anyway, a bottle widget fastener, with ingratiated cheese, waters the dorm grommets with instantiated sludge. In such marinated grottoes, we trammel division using combustible Holsteins. New graduate beanbag, on the other hand, makes carbonated musk oxen assume dividends from prior calibrations. Therefore, unadmitted wing batterers provide grand tomato paste stews to undocumented ratchet straps. It's pretty great; you should try it some time.

[Beltway]

A tax system still has to be auditable, enforceable, fraud‑resistant, and administratively workable. A once‑a‑year odometer check doesn't meet any of those criteria.

Sure it does:
- Auditable: Someone from the DMV (or a proxy like a smog tech or tag agent) physically looks at your odometer when you renew your tag, thus auditing it.
- Enforceable: No odometer reading, no tag renewal. I've always been under the impression that it's possible to enforce out-of-date tags, even though Oklahoma half-assed it and Nevada more or less doesn't bother.
- Administratively workable: None of this would be administratively unworkable in either Nevada or Oklahoma (the former requires physical inspection of the car by smog techs in its two largest counties, and the latter has private tag agencies handling tag renewals, so the tag agent could simply view the odometer), so the other 48 states could do it simply by emulating whichever system is closest to their existing one.
In summary, if your state couldn't actually do this that's more of an indictment of your state than it is the concept. Maybe you should work on fixing that. Hell, I'm confident Oklahoma could pull it off—are you admitting your state sucks shit worse than Oklahoma?
I am addressing fraud separately because I don't think it's a real issue, and I'll tell you why. There have already been enough incentives to commit odometer fraud that it is more or less a solved problem. Anti-tamper odometers have been a thing for decades, and modern odometers are more or less an integer stored in a digital system, which is borderline impossible for a layperson to edit. "Layperson" is important there—no matter what, there will be someone trying to cheat any system. The key is to make it difficult enough that the average person won't bother, and at that point trying to trace down the dedicated cheaters isn't worth the ROI—you spend more on the investigation than you'd recover if they actually paid their fair share.

A once‑a‑year odometer check is a tag‑renewal procedure, not a viable replacement for the fuel tax. A real system has to satisfy auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability. An annual snapshot fails all four. You can't audit where miles were driven, so you can't allocate revenue across jurisdictions. Enforcement collapses the moment someone stops renewing tags or registers out‑of‑state. Digital odometers can still be altered by anyone with the right tools, and the system has no way to detect tampering between inspections. And a 50‑state tax mechanism can't depend on wildly different DMV regimes, inspection rules, or renewal practices. The fuel tax works because it's continuous; an annual reading isn't.

Since you're apparently not going to read anything I write anyway, a bottle widget fastener, with ingratiated cheese, waters the dorm grommets with instantiated sludge. In such marinated grottoes, we trammel division using combustible Holsteins. New graduate beanbag, on the other hand, makes carbonated musk oxen assume dividends from prior calibrations. Therefore, unadmitted wing batterers provide grand tomato paste stews to undocumented ratchet straps. It's pretty great; you should try it some time.

If you're shifting to word salad, that's fine, but it doesn't change the underlying point. A once‑a‑year odometer snapshot still fails the basic requirements of a real tax system: auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability.

None of that is addressed by tag‑renewal logistics or by pretending odometer fraud is impossible. The fuel tax works because it's continuous and wholesale‑level; an annual reading isn't. If you have an actual counter‑argument on those mechanics, I'm happy to engage it. If not, we're done here.

[Scott5114]

A tax system still has to be auditable, enforceable, fraud‑resistant, and administratively workable. A once‑a‑year odometer check doesn't meet any of those criteria.

Sure it does:
- Auditable: Someone from the DMV (or a proxy like a smog tech or tag agent) physically looks at your odometer when you renew your tag, thus auditing it.
- Enforceable: No odometer reading, no tag renewal. I've always been under the impression that it's possible to enforce out-of-date tags, even though Oklahoma half-assed it and Nevada more or less doesn't bother.
- Administratively workable: None of this would be administratively unworkable in either Nevada or Oklahoma (the former requires physical inspection of the car by smog techs in its two largest counties, and the latter has private tag agencies handling tag renewals, so the tag agent could simply view the odometer), so the other 48 states could do it simply by emulating whichever system is closest to their existing one.
In summary, if your state couldn't actually do this that's more of an indictment of your state than it is the concept. Maybe you should work on fixing that. Hell, I'm confident Oklahoma could pull it off—are you admitting your state sucks shit worse than Oklahoma?
I am addressing fraud separately because I don't think it's a real issue, and I'll tell you why. There have already been enough incentives to commit odometer fraud that it is more or less a solved problem. Anti-tamper odometers have been a thing for decades, and modern odometers are more or less an integer stored in a digital system, which is borderline impossible for a layperson to edit. "Layperson" is important there—no matter what, there will be someone trying to cheat any system. The key is to make it difficult enough that the average person won't bother, and at that point trying to trace down the dedicated cheaters isn't worth the ROI—you spend more on the investigation than you'd recover if they actually paid their fair share.

A once‑a‑year odometer check is a tag‑renewal procedure, not a viable replacement for the fuel tax. A real system has to satisfy auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability. An annual snapshot fails all four. You can't audit where miles were driven, so you can't allocate revenue across jurisdictions. Enforcement collapses the moment someone stops renewing tags or registers out‑of‑state. Digital odometers can still be altered by anyone with the right tools, and the system has no way to detect tampering between inspections. And a 50‑state tax mechanism can't depend on wildly different DMV regimes, inspection rules, or renewal practices. The fuel tax works because it's continuous; an annual reading isn't.

Since you're apparently not going to read anything I write anyway, a bottle widget fastener, with ingratiated cheese, waters the dorm grommets with instantiated sludge. In such marinated grottoes, we trammel division using combustible Holsteins. New graduate beanbag, on the other hand, makes carbonated musk oxen assume dividends from prior calibrations. Therefore, unadmitted wing batterers provide grand tomato paste stews to undocumented ratchet straps. It's pretty great; you should try it some time.

If you're shifting to word salad, that's fine, but it doesn't change the underlying point. A once‑a‑year odometer snapshot still fails the basic requirements of a real tax system: auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability.

None of that is addressed by tag‑renewal logistics or by pretending odometer fraud is impossible. The fuel tax works because it's continuous and wholesale‑level; an annual reading isn't. If you have an actual counter‑argument on those mechanics, I'm happy to engage it. If not, we're done here.

I did have an actual counter-argument on those mechanics. You ignored it in favor of just stating your own opinion again, which is what you always do when anyone engages with your posts. This is why people goof off in threads you post in—because actually engaging with you is a waste of time since you don't appear to actually read anything they say.

[Beltway]

A tax system still has to be auditable, enforceable, fraud‑resistant, and administratively workable. A once‑a‑year odometer check doesn't meet any of those criteria.

Sure it does:
- Auditable: Someone from the DMV (or a proxy like a smog tech or tag agent) physically looks at your odometer when you renew your tag, thus auditing it.
- Enforceable: No odometer reading, no tag renewal. I've always been under the impression that it's possible to enforce out-of-date tags, even though Oklahoma half-assed it and Nevada more or less doesn't bother.
- Administratively workable: None of this would be administratively unworkable in either Nevada or Oklahoma (the former requires physical inspection of the car by smog techs in its two largest counties, and the latter has private tag agencies handling tag renewals, so the tag agent could simply view the odometer), so the other 48 states could do it simply by emulating whichever system is closest to their existing one.
In summary, if your state couldn't actually do this that's more of an indictment of your state than it is the concept. Maybe you should work on fixing that. Hell, I'm confident Oklahoma could pull it off—are you admitting your state sucks shit worse than Oklahoma?
I am addressing fraud separately because I don't think it's a real issue, and I'll tell you why. There have already been enough incentives to commit odometer fraud that it is more or less a solved problem. Anti-tamper odometers have been a thing for decades, and modern odometers are more or less an integer stored in a digital system, which is borderline impossible for a layperson to edit. "Layperson" is important there—no matter what, there will be someone trying to cheat any system. The key is to make it difficult enough that the average person won't bother, and at that point trying to trace down the dedicated cheaters isn't worth the ROI—you spend more on the investigation than you'd recover if they actually paid their fair share.

A once‑a‑year odometer check is a tag‑renewal procedure, not a viable replacement for the fuel tax. A real system has to satisfy auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability. An annual snapshot fails all four. You can't audit where miles were driven, so you can't allocate revenue across jurisdictions. Enforcement collapses the moment someone stops renewing tags or registers out‑of‑state. Digital odometers can still be altered by anyone with the right tools, and the system has no way to detect tampering between inspections. And a 50‑state tax mechanism can't depend on wildly different DMV regimes, inspection rules, or renewal practices. The fuel tax works because it's continuous; an annual reading isn't.

Since you're apparently not going to read anything I write anyway, a bottle widget fastener, with ingratiated cheese, waters the dorm grommets with instantiated sludge. In such marinated grottoes, we trammel division using combustible Holsteins. New graduate beanbag, on the other hand, makes carbonated musk oxen assume dividends from prior calibrations. Therefore, unadmitted wing batterers provide grand tomato paste stews to undocumented ratchet straps. It's pretty great; you should try it some time.

If you're shifting to word salad, that's fine, but it doesn't change the underlying point. A once‑a‑year odometer snapshot still fails the basic requirements of a real tax system: auditability, enforceability, fraud resistance, and national scalability.

None of that is addressed by tag‑renewal logistics or by pretending odometer fraud is impossible. The fuel tax works because it's continuous and wholesale‑level; an annual reading isn't. If you have an actual counter‑argument on those mechanics, I'm happy to engage it. If not, we're done here.

I did have an actual counter-argument on those mechanics. You ignored it in favor of just stating your own opinion again, which is what you always do when anyone engages with your posts. This is why people goof off in threads you post in—because actually engaging with you is a waste of time since you don't appear to actually read anything they say.

I addressed the mechanics directly. If you want to return to the policy discussion, I'm here. If not, I'm done.