Tax per mile: Plan in the works to tax you a ‘road usage charge’

The gas tax isn’t going as far as it used to as more people drive less and new cars are much more efficient.

But are you ready to pay by the mile for how much you actually drive? Washington state is moving forward with plans to explore that idea.

By any name, miles traveled or road usage charges, the idea comes down to taxing you for every mile you drive.

The Washington State Transportation Commission will meet this week to take the next steps in potentially implementing this plan. Commissioner Jerry Litt said, eventually, it could take the place of the current gas tax.

“We have, as a commission, looked at it primarily as a replacement for the gas tax, but there are others who have said that, possibly, there’s both,” he said. “The potential for both.”

Regardless of whether this becomes the only funding source for roads or in addition to the gas tax, Litt said a better and more reliable funding source needs to be found.

“That decision really hasn’t been made yet,” Litt said. “What we do in our plan is, we emphasize that we need to look at sustainable funding sources and the road usage charge appears to be one of those.”

According to Litt, the idea is to make the price you pay about equal to what you pay now with the gas tax.

“At this point and time, the study has been to look at a revenue neutral position, and if I remember right, it’s one to one-and-a-half cents a mile.”

Now comes the bigger question. How do you collect the tax or record the miles driven?

Litt said the commission is looking at a few options. You could pay a flat, upfront fee for a certain amount of miles for the year. You could pay with an odometer reading every year when you get your tabs replaced.

The state might also put a transponder in your car, but this is where things get dicey. There are huge privacy concerns over this. People don’t want the state to know where they’re driving.

Oregon has come up with its answer to those privacy concerns. It is about to launch its voluntary vehicle miles driven tax next year.

Drivers have the choice to enable the GPS in the plug or not. The benefit of doing that is that it will only charge drivers for miles driven inside of Oregon. If you don’t enable the GPS, drivers will pay for every mile, including those that are out of state.

Washington is still in the infancy stage, but paying for each mile driven is gaining momentum in Olympia.