Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free up congested roads

Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by briandear on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @07:32PM (#19259820)

Those roads are what allow stuff to be delivered. How do you ship an air conditioning unit on a bike path? The point is that the roads serve commerce and a tax on roads is really a tax on everything. Roads aren’t exactly massively subsidized — the commerce they generate results in taxes. Tax revenue generated per mile driven is far greater than any supposed subsidy. We could make an argument that schools are massively subsidized — the parents of students attending don’t pay the actual cost of attendance however, the tax revenues generated by an educated workforce are considered a net win compared to the cost of the “subsidy.” My kids don’t go to public school and some people don’t drive on roads, but we all benefit from roads and other people’s kids being educated and the economic gain vastly outweighs the subsidy. Not everyone uses the roads, but everyone benefits from them — thus a direct user-fee really serves no purpose, it’s just an additional tax on everyone. Since practically every single product touches a road at some point, taxing the roads more just makes everything more expensive.

You are also incorrect suggesting that $5 per gallon is “about equivalent to what other rich countries tax motor fuel.” In France, it’s $2.77 per gallon. In the UK, it’s $2.83 per gallon. Netherlands is $3.5 per gallon. Sweden is $3.51. In Australia, it’s $1.12 per gallon, New Zealand is $1.58. None of those countries are even close to $5 per gallon.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by adrianN on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @01:32AM (#19261342)

Taxing vehicle use reduces vehicle use. That's quite important if you want to do something about global warming. Gasoline in Berlin costs $5.75 but I can still order stuff from Amazon.

As for transporting air conditioning units, trailers and cargo bikes are a thing. You can move a refrigerator by bike

https://www.bikesatwork.com/blog/moving-a-refrigerator-by-bi...

Electric assist bicycles can transport even more cargo.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by Balero on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @07:32AM (#19262812)

"You are also incorrect suggesting that $5 per gallon is “about equivalent to what other rich countries tax motor fuel.” In France, it’s $2.77 per gallon. In the UK, it’s $2.83 per gallon. Netherlands is $3.5 per gallon. Sweden is $3.51. In Australia, it’s $1.12 per gallon, New Zealand is $1.58. None of those countries are even close to $5 per gallon."

This is incorrect, in the UK at least. The best price I get is about £1.21 per liter. Which is $1.61 per liter Or $7.31 per Gallon.

So we are well over $5 a gallon. Don't forget the USA is pretty much the only country to measure liquid volume in gallons, we all use liters - 1L = 4.54609 Gallons

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by Fins on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @11:43AM (#19264381)

I think you have liters and gallons backwards, unless the British gallon had shrank significantly with the Brexit.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by Balero on Thursday February 28, 2019 @05:26AM (#19270368)

umm, nope British Gallon = 4.546090L US Gallon = 3.785412 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon

Though I had forgotten that the US used a different one. So my maths is off above. Thanks for pointing that out!

Using the US Gallon: £1.21 per liter == $1.61 per liter == $6.09 per Gallon.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by Fins on Friday March 01, 2019 @02:38AM (#19278628)

I meant that "1L = 4.54609 Gallons " seems to be off a bit.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by megaremote on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @10:04PM (#19260506)

> How do you ship an air conditioning unit on a bike path?

Use a trailer? While not possible for everything, we could easily do with 1/10000 of the cars we have.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by eecc on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @06:29AM (#19262538)

You can always rent a van for the couple hours you need it [1]

I still regret having bought an expensive percussion drill to install a bathroom vanity, when I could have just rented one from the local hardware store chain. [2]

[1] https://www.greenwheels.com/nl/prive/jouw-autos

[2] https://www.praxis.nl/service/gereedschap-verhuur

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by Goz3rr on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @05:39AM (#19262332)

Am Dutch, just looked out the window at what is considered a gas station with cheap prices (not next to a highway) and gas is €1.559/l, diesel is €1.319/l.

This comes to $6.72 per US gallon for gas. More than half of this price is VAT and duty. On top of this we pay road taxes based on the weight and fuel type of your vehicle, about €50/month for a small (1000kg) gas powered car.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by shereadsthenews on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @08:05PM (#19259986)

Gas in Switzerland is currently about $9 USD per gallon (CHF 2.27 per liter), chiefly in taxes.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by martinald on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @08:11PM (#19260003)

Correct, if the price in the US is $3 a gallon and the price in Europe is $8-9 a gallon then there must be around 5-6 of additional taxes in Europe.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by sgustard on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @11:14PM (#19260818)

What's your average distance driven per year? In the US it's 13,476 miles (21k km).

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by rypskar on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @02:00AM (#19261453)

So because you drive longer, which of course produce more Co2, you should have a lower price? l/100km or mpg is not really the most important, what count is l or g per year. Last time gas prices where high sales of SUVs and trucks in US did go down, as soon as the gas price did go down sales of cars with terrible mpg ratio did go up

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by buzer on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @01:17AM (#19261281)

In Finland, the price is currently about $6 per gallon. Average car drives about 10500 miles per year & there's about 0.49 cars per person.

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by Symbiote on Wednesday February 27, 2019 @02:58AM (#19261706)

$5 per gallon is roughly in line with the tax in Europe.

Compare the UK and the USA, conveniently adjacent in the table. Both have refineries, so the untaxed price should be similar, but the UK taxed price is $4 higher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_and_diesel_usage_and_...

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Re:Taxing Uber and Lyft rides is L.A's latest plan to free u... by martinald on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @08:09PM (#19259997)

Keep in mind there is also 20-25% VAT on those European prices. Which is on the total cost including the cost of the fuel and any duties.

It definitely adds up to around £1 a litre in the UK of tax (59p duty plus 30p VAT) depending on exact wholesale prices. This works out at around $5 per (US) gallon.

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