Ridiculous! Fined for doing the right thing.

[hifigator]

Driver fined for trying to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

A musician decided that he would convert his Mercedes diesel to run on vegetable oil. Proud of his accomplishment, he was sporting a bumper sticker proclaiming, "Powered by 100% vegetable oil" when he was accosted by revenue investigators at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. It seems that it is illegal to evade fuel taxes, so he was fined $1000 by the state and told to expect another $1000 fine from the feds for not paying the highway tax.

A few other enterprising individuals (former moonshiners?) making ethanol for fuel have been fined for the same violation.

Editor's note: All of the trouble in the world right now is directly connected with our dependence on oil from the Middle East. If enterprising individuals are willing to go through the trouble of converting their vehicles to run on alternative fuels to reduce that dependence, the government shouldn't be fining them, but encouraging them. They are patriotic Americans, not criminals.

The News and Observer

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I showed this article to a couple of friends of mine who are on the opposite side of the political aisle. The reasonable one, and in my opinion the far wiser of the two, immediately sided with me thinking this was absurd. The other, more of an idealist, instinctively wants to disagree with me since I am a conservative Libertarian and he just can't bring himself to believe that we could agree on much of anything other than music. In any case, he immediately started talking about potholes and the sort which are paid for by gasoline taxes. He just can't see the forest for the trees in my opinion.

Ideas?

[The Stig]

He was fined for not paying the tax, not for running the car on veggie oil. My guess is that he simply didn't know that by not paying for gasoline he was also not paying a state highway tax.

It's a forgiveable error, but ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. He should have paid the tax despite not buying gas, and I imagine that's what he'll do now. I do agree though that a $1000 fine is draconian - since this seems like an obvious case of well-intentioned ignorance, he should have at least been warned first.

[AustinHoya03]

hifi, how many bong rips had you taken when someone sent you a chain e-mail with this "news story" in it?

[hifigator]

I read it in the magazine, not in an email.

I have seen several stories about the ethanol angle but never one about the vegetable oil angle. In any case I still think it is ridiculous. If you ride bikes you "use" the road. If you hitch rides with other people you "use" the road. Now I know they presumably are paying the tax, but the idea that the tax is for using the road not the gas is just plain silly. And like the editor's note says, we should be encouraging actions such as these, not discouraging them.

Stig, I know that ignorance of the law is no excuse. That isn't the point. The point is it's a bad law.

[bubbrubbhoya]

I loathe myself for agreeing with this guy, but he's right. If the government wants to charge the highway tax by taxing gasoline consumption, they have no right to tax a man who is not using gasoline. If they want to justify taxing him, they should have to stop tying the tax to gas usage. Frankly, if they want to reduce emissions, they should continue tying the tax to gas consumption in order to incentivize alternative solutions.

That said, I still hate you hifi. What kind of music do you and your friend agree on, a mutual love of Smashmouth?

[hifigator]

bubbrubbhoya said:

I loathe myself for agreeing with this guy, but he's right. If the government wants to charge the highway tax by taxing gasoline consumption, they have no right to tax a man who is not using gasoline. If they want to justify taxing him, they should have to stop tying the tax to gas usage. Frankly, if they want to reduce emissions, they should continue tying the tax to gas consumption in order to incentivize alternative solutions.

That said, I still hate you hifi. What kind of music do you and your friend agree on, a mutual love of Smashmouth?

Not familiar with them. We both mostly like classic guitar driven rock like RUSH and some of the better metal like Metalica and Iron Maiden, although I do like just about everything. I can listen to anything except rap and opera and enjoy it. Those two, I just don't like.

[Deleted]

Rigging your car up to run on vegetable oil is not the right thing -unless you want to smell like french fries all the time.

[Filo]

cam said:

Rigging your car up to run on vegetable oil is not the right thing -unless you want to smell like french fries all the time.

Please, Cam... "Freedom Fries"

[hifigator]

Austin, I just wanted to be sure this wasn't some hoax. It isn't.


www.newsobserver.com/news/story/599471.html

[Deleted]

filo said:

cam said:

Rigging your car up to run on vegetable oil is not the right thing -unless you want to smell like french fries all the time.

Please, Cam... "Freedom Fries"

Of course, of course.....my bad.

[Boz]

I prefer "Sarkozy Fries" myself. (Also known as "Sarkozy Sticks" and "'Kozy Chips.")

Whip those smelly cheese-eaters into shape!

;D

[TigerHoya]

This is similar to what was proposed in CA and OR and England.

There was discussion of fitting cars with a GPS device that talked to the gas pump so you would be taxed by the mile in the particular state you were in. The reason in CA an maybe to a lesser extent OR was because they weren't making as much money in gas taxes from hybrid owners/drivers.

NC doing this doesn't surprise me. Before online shopping was even a big deal (I want to say late 90s) NC had an online use tax form to fill out. If you didn't fill that form out for online shopping they used some economic study they commissioned that showed the amount typical people of varying income levels were spending online at the time and then they taxed you based on that.

[AustinHoya03]

Well, this is a fine piece of journalism. It suggests that this musician has been fined for avoiding the 29.9-cent a gallon gas tax. Actually, wouldn't it have to be a fuel tax? Also, it's unclear to me whether everyone pays this tax at the pump or whether distributors pay it and it's passed on to consumers. Seems to me it would have to be the latter, otherwise anyone who walks to work is "avoiding the 'gas' tax." Probably, this guy is being fined for failure to register as a fuel distributor or manufacturer, which is how the government figures out who to tax. He is probably not being fined for simply putting vegetable oil in his gas tank, which is what the article would have you believe. Sounds like a) that's not an entirely dumb law to have; b) the dude should have done his homework; and c) his case will probably be dismissed, or at the very least the charges will be reduced due to political considerations (as we all know, DAs are elected in NC). Nothing to lose sleep over.

Apologies for doubting you hifi, but many of your prior posts have contained stories or statements of dubious truthfulness. Does this mean the "Encounter at Neyland Stadium" actually happened?

[The Stig]

hifigator said:

Stig, I know that ignorance of the law is no excuse. That isn't the point. The point is it's a bad law.

It's a fine law, since our economy depends on a functioning highway system, and that tax plays a big role in keeping the highway system in shape.

The person in question fell afoul of the tax due to the collection method and lack of public information about it. You can't really fault the government for either of those, since 99.99% of people pay the tax without a problem (and most pay without even knowing it). The only problem I see here is that the guy wasn't given a warning before the fine, since it was an obvious case of ignorance.

[hifigator]

Austin, I don't make things up. If you are talking about my friend Greg who Knox. Co. officers said was "insighting a riot" when he was yelling "yes! That's Percy Harvin. Remember the name Percy Harvin. That is Trur freshman Percy Harvin ... 3 more years of that ... etc..." then yes, that really happened.


Stig, I think you oversimplify the issue. There are certainly many factors at work here. The first is that we have an energy problem, in that we are overly dependent on foreign sources. We also have an energy problem in that we use "too much" of it. We have a third energy problem in that it is too expensive, primarily because of the first two problems. So with that in mind it is reasonable to think that we might be willing to encourage actions such as this man took. In this case it could be looked at as a tax break. When enough people respond with similar behavior then we will be well on our way to addressing those energy problems. When we get to a point where the tax budget is falling short of its needs then we should address that problem, not now. Instead it is just another example of government finding ways to put their hands in the cofffers.

Now getting to the tax itself, they say the tax isn't a fuel tax but rather a tax for the use of the roads. Abstracting away from the energy issue, that is actually a fairly reasonable position. If we accept the tax as necessary (which is another issue entirely) then it would be reasonable to conclude that the tax is placed on gasoline as a matter of practicality. The vast majority of people use gas, not other forms of fuel. By taxing the gas, you are effectively taxing those who drive more, more than those who drive less. You are also taxing those who have less efficient vehicles more than those with more efficient ones.

Personally, I think that if this is the logic that the tax should be on the vehicle not on the fuel. And I think it should be based on the size/weight of the vehicle as well as the extent of its use. Given that the argument is that the tax is actually for the use of the road, then cars, trucks, motorcycle and even bicycles should be taxed. It doesn't seem like it woud be difficult to have every vehicle registered. Currently in Florida all except from bicycles are registered with the state. On campus bicycles are registered as well. All they would have to do is add bicycles to the state registration process and then the fee could be a part of your registration. Since bicycles don't have odometers, they would have to pay a flat fee. Motor vehicles would have their fee in a similar fashion, but larger/heavier vehicles would be have a larger fee. I don't really know how to handle the mileage angle, and that is why taxing the fuel itself works so well, but I'm sure someone could come up with a plan to guage "consumption" in this regard.


We essentially have a number of different issues.

As always we have the underlying question of our ideas of government. I am of the view that far too many politicians are trying to dream up new ideas to have government involved in more and more parts of our lives. I am generally against more taxes for this reason. Also, government has shown itself to never really want to give any money back. Once they get their hands on the monies, in this case as justified by the needs to pay for the roads, they virtually never change their view.
As for the specific issue, I think it would be wise and prudent to effectively give those who switch over to bio-diesel a tax break. If and when it becomes a problem, then we can deal with it.

[hifigator]

Here is one example for illustration purposes. There are already established tax breaks in our system. In an of itself that isn't anything new. We have tax breaks/credits for the elderly, those with dependents, those with physical impairments etc... Also we will subsidize certain industries like farming in the interests of "all." There are also many programs which offer tax subsidies to private industry in exchange for their consideration of the city or state.

Right now one of the hot topics locally are the tax breaks that the City of Gainesville is giving to some companies who are building upscale projects in the downtown/campus area. Basically if the investers are willing to come use their money to develop an upscale shopping/living place then the city is willing to forego some of the taxes which they would otherwise be subjected to. It benefits the city because the revenues which they will generate from the project itself far outweigh the short term tax revenues along the way.

Unfortunately, too many people don't pay attention to that and just read the hedline in the paper "City to give 'XYZ Construction' $2.7 million tax Break." And then we are back once again to the age old rubbish "tax breaks for the rich" or the "rich get richer." There is something to be said about actually seeing the forest and not getting bogged down by the trees.
I see no reason why the same approach shouldn't be used in the energy tax situation.

[Deleted]

Hifi, get back to work.

There are customers waiting, and they all want fries with that.

[hifigator]

cam said:

Hifi, get back to work.

There are customers waiting, and they all want fries with that.

I guess we do things a bit differently down here. None of my customers have ever asked for fries with their plasma TV or onion rings with their car entertainment system.

But I have sold a bread maker before. Probably 20 years ago I had a customer walk in and ask for me by name and then told me that he was referred here for a bread maker. After a little checking around, that was correct. At the time Panasonic made one of the best bread makers for consumer use. As it worked out, this guy responded to an ad on the product and eventually ended up in contact with the Panasonic distributor in Miami. They obviously won't sell to an individual so they referred him to their closest account which was us. He left a deposit one day, picked up the bread maker the next and I haven't seen him since.