New tax???

[ohhman]

A friend of mine just sent this to me.  I do not keep up with what goes on in Montpelier, but this is certainly one to be aware of.  Finally when we get some relief from our heating bills & the price of gas, up comes more tax.  Let your reps know how you feel!!

We are strongly against the tax increase on fuels for heating and vehicles. We respectfully ask that you re-consider the following proposed bills that will do more harm than good for Vermonters.
H.395 and H.412 propose to add up to $100 per metric ton tax to carbon dioxide. This will affect your cost, adding $1.02 to each gallon of heating oil, $0.57 to each gallon of propane, and gasoline and diesel would each increase $1.07 a gallon.
H.287 proposes to bring the fuel gross receipts tax up to 2% of all retail sales of heating oil, dyed diesel, kerosene, propane, natural gas, and coal. This equates to about a 6¢ per gallon increase for consumers.
 Please find another way.

[mkr]

It would raise my heating bill about $600, that is NOT OK!

[kevin]

I understand that this will get charged to distributors and passed along to consumers but the only numbers listed in the bill were what the distributors will be charged.  Can someone please tell me how the numbers of "$1.02 to each gallon of heating oil, $0.57 to each gallon of propane, and gasoline and diesel would each increase $1.07 a gallon" were arrived at?  Thanks!

[kevin]

The CO2 factors that I found for gasoline is 113 gallons and the CO2 factor of fuel oil is 96.6 gallons.  Using the .001 factor on each of these numbers results in a tax of 11.3 cents per gallon of gasoline and 9.6 cents per gallon of fuel oil.  Quite different from the $1.02 and $1.07 figures mentioned earlier.

[mirjo]

We should all have an interest in "saving a loon" or "saving a tree" since extinction of one species does not bode well for another; however the entire concept of carbon taxes in relation to environmental issues is simply stupid. Here and on the national level with the carbon footprint whatever crap tax theoretically imposed on companies. They don't pollute less, they have deep pockets and just pay the fines. They don't care. This proposed idea is just as dumb. Not the need to raise the money, but the manner of doing it. It also seems pretty damn high.

kpplus2 you are clearly disgruntled with paying taxes and government here, but I wonder how you propose things get paid for, if not by some form of tax? What is an alternate solution? Many of these taxes I disagree with; however, revenue is necessary to fund the government and the only way to do that is through taxes. You've alluded to funds not being managed properly, while this is definitely a possibility, is it really true? A lot of money was spent on things  that were unanticipated in the past few years, like Irene and Sandy and all that damage. It had to come from somewhere.

I think there has to be a better way than to knock people back down when they've just gotten some relief from high fuel prices. Fuels of any sort should be off limit for taxes here, simply because of the necessity of their use for people (which is what makes it attractive in the first place) But it's not really fair. Especially, not that high. The state could st up a toll on I89 between Highgate Springs and Burlington and make a bunch of $ from the Canadians who come across the border all year to shop in St. Albans, Essex, Williston, and Burlington. It's an up front expense, but doesn't need to be elaborate.

[mkr]

^^Agreed.