The people who can afford 272k for a car are a vanishingly small percentage of the world population. In this category of people wasting money, this is one of the least impactful activities. For comparison, they might also consider chartering a jet to the Alps for skiing, renting a yacht for a week in the Mediterranean, going on African safari, etc.
> So, no. No. Of course it's not actually accomplished by gasoline taxes
You do know there is a point where gas taxes can be raised high enough that it just pays for full carbon offset/capture, right? At that point you’re just having a fit that rich people exist, which has nothing to do with solving climate change.
As with most ad valorem (or fixed per unit) consumption taxes, because consumption as a share of income declines with increasing income, so total and marginal tax share drops with greater income.
Calling these taxes regressive just a socially acceptable way for people to say “I don’t want to shoulder any burden for this”.
Yes, sales taxes and VATs are regressive, though in many cases that is made somewhat more nuanced by selective exclusion of basic necessities on which the poor focus a disproportionate share of consumption; when that's done, they are progressive at the low end shifting to regressive higher. This kind of tax that puts it's heaviest burden somewhere between the above average income segment of the working class and the petit bourgeois middle class is somewhat more popular than straight regressive taxation (when you take into account payroll taxes and favorable taxation on LTCG and certain other income disproportionately concentrated among the very rich, US taxes on income also largely break this way).
> Calling these taxes regressive just a socially acceptable way for people to say “I don’t want to shoulder any burden for this”.
Er, no. I actually favor heavier gas taxes (or carbon taxes) as a pigovian tax, but I think that the overall system of taxation should be asjusted so the net effect is not to to decrease progressivity (which, given that I have above average income, probably means I shoulder the burden of that as well as of the additional gas tax, so really the opposite of what you suggest). An individual tax desirable for other reasons being regressive is an addressivle issue.
If you want to project your biases against poor people onto others, fine, but let's be clear that that's what you are doing.
Read my comment again. I didn’t say they weren’t.
> If you want to project your biases against poor people onto others
Are you calling my criticism of armchair economists a bias against poor people? Do you know that most armchair economists are not poor people?
But in any case, I don't think it matters too much whether individual taxes are progressive or regressive or flat. That consideration only really makes a difference for the overall tax system. Individual taxes can be designed to be as efficient as possible, as long as the overall system is as progressive/flat/regressive as desired.
Just so we're clear, punishing them would involve, say, jailing them or confiscating all but $50k or so of their net worth and then making them work at Burger King for a month or two. That would be punishing.
Asking for a more progressive and fair tax system does not "punish" anyone.
Come on. Gas taxes are hilariously regressive. The people—ALL the people—who can afford this kind of dumbass vehicle and who are willing to commit the offense of buying and operating it will never, ever be affected or restricted or motivated by any piddly gas taxes.
So, no. No. Of course it's not actually accomplished by gasoline taxes. That's a fantasy.
If you made gas taxes 1-2 orders of magnitude more progressive than they are right now, that would be a tiny start.