Arizona to tax sunshine

phred01

Whenever there are n ewfree untaxed commodities treasuries around the world dream up new taxes. Here in Oz local govern't taxes water that falls on your land and goes into a dam. Read yesterday on Yahoo that Arizona plans to tax sunshine because there is not enough to go around. If you have plenty of land and put enough panels to recharge electric cars and run a household needs the govern't are missing out on revenue.

solar_dave

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Actually the bill was for pure EV cars to pay a per mile tax to replace the road taxes normally associated with fuel taxes.

As in other states, Arizona is facing a shortfall in road maintenance funds. The state blames this on the rise of fuel-efficient vehicles and seeks to target owners of electric vehicles to impose a fee upon to make up for this shortfall.

Arizona’s bill calls for imposing a tax on electric vehicles of 1 cent per mile driven on the state’s highways, amounting to an average of $120 annually.

Fortunately, this measure is “dead in the water” for now, mainly because the state can’t determine how it would calculate and collect the fee, but were sure it’ll be revived at some point in the near future.

Anyways, it seems electric vehicle owners across the nation had better get ready to pay some sort of road-use fee, because that’s the way it looks like it’ll be in the future.

http://insideevs.com/add-arizona-to-list-of-states-seeking-to-impose-road-use-taxfee-on-electric-vehicle-drivers/

Of course there always is the APS "tax" for net metering in the ACC Arizona Corporate Commission in another thread here.

BB.

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Yep--I predicted years ago that governments could not afford electric cars after they pushed so hard for them. Once there was a significant electric (or even high mpg hybrid vehicles), the state and federal governments were going to have to "crack down" on the missing "resources".

And that high fuel tax countries (like much/all of Europe with that $7+ per gallon fuel) would never be able to "allow" significant numbers of electric vehicles on the roads without some sort of make up taxes.

I am still waiting for California to tax GT Solar power too...

-Bill

westbranch

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Not sure about the validity of the claims but interesting statements about HIGH miles per gallon vehicles that are in Europe...
http://jimstonefreelance.com/50plus.html

and there is the embedded link about a Yankee that drove one on vacation and looked into getting one to the US, 65 MP(US)G
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBnlXGvA1Wk

Panamretiree

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Just back from up north. Paid $1.40ish per litre in northern Ontario, from $1.23 to $1.36 a litre in Ottawa, and $1.41 per litre in Victoria. Montreal is generally higher than Ontario, and the further east you go the same happens. I imagine Newfoundland is over a $1.50.

This puts in Victoria at $6.30 per imperial gallon or $5.35 per US Gallon (in Canadian funds). Need those 65 mpg cars in Canada. Is that MPG in Europe US or Imperial, probably US. In litres would be nice so as to compare apples to apples.

All gas stations down here are converting to litres at the pumps.

Cheers

Ernest

westbranch

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Ernest, Clarified that gallon, ya, the liter thing is bad, I don't want to determine how far I have left to go and then see how many 100Km's I have to go then divide on by the other, etc, etc,etc, you know WIM. Just to figure out if I have enough gas to get me there...

Brianellul

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

westbranch wrote: »

Not sure about the validity of the claims but interesting statements about HIGH miles per gallon vehicles that are in Europe...
http://jimstonefreelance.com/50plus.html

and there is the embedded link about a Yankee that drove one on vacation and looked into getting one to the US, 65 MP(US)G
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBnlXGvA1Wk

But Is it true that in the USA you can't purchase/drive a highly efficient car?

stephendv

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Some interesting stats on fuel efficiency here:

http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/ICCT_PVStd_Aug2011_web.pdf

Attachment not found.

Panamretiree

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

westbranch wrote: »

Ernest, Clarified that gallon, ya, the liter thing is bad, I don't want to determine how far I have left to go and then see how many 100Km's I have to go then divide on by the other, etc, etc,etc, you know WIM. Just to figure out if I have enough gas to get me there...

Fair enough; however, when looking at mileage ratings and fuel efficiency, how does one compare apples to apples when the standard is not consistent. I also submit that the litre thing is not bad, just different. Whenever I used to ask my father about the fuel economy of his car, I was politely told that when the car needed gas he put it in. Fuel economy is really a red herring for most of us, we drive what we can afford.

Panamretiree

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Brianellul wrote: »

But Is it true that in the USA you can't purchase/drive a highly efficient car?

Sure you can and it had better be new and small. The new Dodge Dart gets over 50 mpg as does the Volkswagen Golf.

Fuel efficiency is also in the eye of the beholder. Car manufacturers have been bombarding us North Americans with the 30 something fuel economy as being fantastic. This has been going on for as long as I have been driving. Had a '62 Chrysler Windsor with a 383 cubic inch with a four barrel carb that got 30 mpg on the highway at 60 mph in 1971. Not much has changed today except the masses are now told in some cases that a certain car can go a certain distance and this is true, it has a bigger gas tank than the previous models.

You get better fuel economy in Canada if you use the imperial gallon for conversion, apples and oranges stuff.

Even if you do buy a highly efficient car, driving habits, where you live, price of gas affect you (you've heard this before). Won't buy a non-domestic car/truck, another sentiment.

A key issue here in North America is we love big cars, big is safer, big is status. We love trucks and SUVs, inefficient devils that they are. Diesel hasn't caught on for mainstream driving, would not matter anyway because driving at slow speeds in towns negates fuel economy. We also love going fast on our highways. Fuel economy ratings are for the ~95 KPH range, too slow for most of us on the highways.

Bottom line is we drive what we buy.

Cheers

Ernest

solar_dave

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Brianellul wrote: »

But Is it true that in the USA you can't purchase/drive a highly efficient car?

Actually I have 2! My Chevy Volt is pretty luxurious and in 13K miles has used 40 US gallons of fuel, mostly for longer trips which equates to 303 mpg. The wife's 2011 has used about 20 gallons, mostly for stale fuel burn off which equates to about 430 mpg. We charge ours from our grid tie solar system which has reached its ROI so those electrons are pretty darn cheap. Technology rules. Even if we had to buy off peak power to charge at $0.055 a kWh X 13.5 kWh to get a 40ish mile charge that is less than $0.02 a mile for the electric. Compare that to $4.00 gasoline on a 40 mpg car (which is about what the Volt gets burning gas) that is $0.10 a mile. So far the maintenance costs have been pretty nil, One oil change on each car in ~2 years of ownership, tire rotations every 7500 miles done @ Discount tire for free if you contracted warranty on the tires (actually the dealer did mine for free). I did an alignment on the 2012 for $99.

The cars are a pleasure to drive, the regen on the de-accel is pretty nice to save on brakes and gives you a one foot driving experience. Many people with much higher mileage Volts have had brake inspection at like 50K miles and no discernible wear on the brakes at that point. They have all the latest technology, hands free phone, MyLink for Pandora, a OK NAV system with Onstar & Mapquest downloads of destinations, a USB port for a music stick or smart phone hookup, Bluetooth and multiple power outlets spread around the car for typical accessories, the 2011 and 2012 models have a built in 30 GB hard drive. I have a pair of Samlex 1000 watt TSW inverters (purchase from NAWS on the 4th of July sale) to attach to the 12V battery to provide 120V AC for emergency situations. http://www.solar-electric.com/samlex-pure-sine-wave-inverter-pst-1000-12.html

Prices with the tax breaks are now really under $30K for the base model and if you wheel and deal on a year end, you might get as low as $28K as your final price. Certainly in the realm of a typical mid priced car.

BB.

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Actually, it is pretty difficult to buy any cars outside of the US and import them these days unless they meet a whole bunch of safety, configuration, smog requirements. And if you get them in the US, it is then almost impossible to get them licensed.

Over the years, people would go to Europe and buy a model specifically configured for the US, drive it ~10,000 miles, and import as a "used car" to save on import duties.

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/trade/basic_trade/importing_car.xml

Warning
Imported motor vehicles are subject to safety standards under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, revised under the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act of 1988; to bumper standards under the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act of 1972, which became effective in 1978; and to air pollution control standards under the Clean Air Act of 1968, as amended in 1977, and 1990.

If vehicles manufactured abroad conform to U.S. safety, bumper, and emission standards, it is because these vehicles are exported for sale in the United States. Therefore, it is unlikely that a vehicle obtained abroad meets all relevant standards. Be skeptical of claims by a foreign dealer or other seller that a vehicle meets these standards or can readily be brought into compliance. Vehicles entering the United States that do not conform with U.S. safety standards must be brought into compliance, exported, or destroyed.

This pamphlet provides essential information for U.S. residents, military or civilian government employees, and foreign nationals who are importing a vehicle into the U.S. It includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) requirements and those of other agencies whose regulations we enforce. Since Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transportation (DOT) requirements are subject to change, we recommend that you contact these agencies before buying a vehicle abroad.

Nice to know we still have active laws that prevent importing from non-existent/regime changed (by US) countries:

Note: Importations from Afghanistan (Taliban), Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Serbia/Montenegro/Kosovo, or Yugoslavia that involve the governments of those countries, are generally prohibited pursuant to regulations issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Before attempting to make such an importation, information concerning the prohibitions and licensing policy should be obtained by contacting:

-Bill

Photowhit

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Panamretiree wrote: »

A key issue here in North America is we love big cars, big is safer, big is status. We love trucks and SUVs, inefficient devils that they are. Diesel hasn't caught on for mainstream driving, would not matter anyway because driving at slow speeds in towns negates fuel economy. We also love going fast on our highways. Fuel economy ratings are for the ~95 KPH range, too slow for most of us on the highways.

Another issue here is burn efficiency, one of the reasons you can't get some of the high MPG diesels here in the states, and the reason some of the small light cars, don't cut the mustard any more. Mom had a CRX rated at 72mpg back in the 80's! This was during inflated mpg ratings but she managed 60+mpg.

I do agree that Americans like big cars, I saw that the new 'mini' cooper has put on a good bit of weight!

ggunn

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Panamretiree wrote: »

Fuel economy is really a red herring for most of us, we drive what we can afford.

True dat. My daily drive only gets about 20mpg, but I bought it seven years ago for $1500 and it still runs great. I'd love to have a Volt or a Leaf, but the up front cost would swamp the fuel cost savings by a huge margin.

solar_dave

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

ggunn wrote: »

True dat. My daily drive only gets about 20mpg, but I bought it seven years ago for $1500 and it still runs great. I'd love to have a Volt or a Leaf, but the up front cost would swamp the fuel cost savings by a huge margin.

This is true, I replaces a 10 year old car that stranded the wife, twice in a year. Happy Wife Happy Life!
On mine I sold an 2007 caddy that still had a long run of payments left and added enough cash to buy the 2012 outright.

If you keep your eyes open the 2011's will be coming off lease in the next 12 months and the 2012 in 24 months and a nice low mileage Volt may be really cheap as they start to flood the market. I would expect prices to well under $20K on the used ones or the leasing companies are going to be stuck with a bunch of them.

Cariboocoot

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Panamaretiree's point is entirely valid. Example:

A few years ago BC implement its carbon tax, adding two cents on to the price of a litre of gasoline which was already $1.46/L then. Since that time the carbon tax has risen to six cents per litre, and the price of gasoline has dropped and then risen again. It's about the same now. So how much fuel (and thus environment) savings did the carbon tax instigate?

None. Fuel usage has gone up over that time period, not down. Some will say "but it hasn't gone up as much as it otherwise would have" but that's a red herring too. (The same is also true of BC "AirCare" program to improve air quality from vehicle emissions; company that ran it made a lot of money and all the 'clean-up' was actually due to the inevitable replacement of older, more-polluting cars with newer ones.)

The truth is that the day-to-day driving changes from the carbon tax were almost none, no matter what the price, because people have to do it and that is the major fuel consumer. Nor can the average worker afford to lay out $30,000 to improve fuel usage by 20% over what they drive now.

Case in point: I drive a 4Runner principally. It doesn't get great mileage. Maybe 26 mpg (the English system is much more manageable than the metric - and I use both). I don't even bother to check because there's nothing I can do about it. I have to go where I have to go and when, and fill up accordingly at whatever price they sock us with (tourist season right now; all prices rise accordingly).

I could drive the old Corolla instead. Probably better on gas (around town anyway). But at $90/month to insure it ... I can just spend the difference on gasoline for the 4Runner. I would need to drive a lot to make it worth insuring both, and I can't not have the 4Runner due to the type of driving I need to do.

Politicians never actually think their marvelous plans through. They just believe the garbage they are told by the loudest voices they hear and expect us to do so as well. Maybe if we implemented a tax on "stupid" we could finally get some return on our investment in them.

ggunn

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

solar_dave wrote: »

This is true, I replaces a 10 year old car that stranded the wife, twice in a year. Happy Wife Happy Life!
On mine I sold an 2007 caddy that still had a long run of payments left and added enough cash to buy the 2012 outright.

If you keep your eyes open the 2011's will be coming off lease in the next 12 months and the 2012 in 24 months and a nice low mileage Volt may be really cheap as they start to flood the market. I would expect prices to well under $20K on the used ones or the leasing companies are going to be stuck with a bunch of them.

What do you mean by "cheap"? You got it that I spent 15 hundred (not thousand) dollars on my car, right?

phred01

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Arizona has done it started a sunshine tax very low / month just to get everyone use to it before hiking it up.
http://news.yahoo.com/arizona-regulators-adopt-5-monthly-solar-fee-022306910--finance.html

niel

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

they already make many get bicycle licenses so they've got that one covered. other taxes to come are roller skates, scooters, skate boards, and even walking/running. when they've pushed stuff like that to the max they'll go for taxing the air you breathe and ultimately time itself. we've come a long way from that 1/2% on tea.:grr

ggunn

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Hyperbole weakens arguments. Arizona is not taxing sunshine.

simon87

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

I'm actually surprised we haven't seen taxing initiatives in more places. Apparently they tried it in Spain and the people tore their panels down. But looking at solar energy capacity in Arizona, taxing it is an obvious revenue choice and we can probably expect to see more of it in the future: http://www.statista.com/statistics/195600/us-grid-connected-pv-cumulative-installed-capacity-by-state/

niel

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

just because they can tax it doesn't mean they should. i think you missed the whole point of the thread.

SolarPowered

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

I hope they don't tax anytime soon in california. I don't even see it likely to tax on produced energy as is. As a businessman and business conservative, I live in a liberal state for a reason......... Take advantage of the free money making tax free programs that liberals put out there to make conservatives rich. Already looking to score a deal with a developer to build and install electric car cafe's along the interstate 101, 680, 880, and 24 highways.

I design and build them, the developer finances the solar systems and materials for build, its a 50-50 LLC partner ship and we would be charging $.20 kWh to charge the cars. Thats 30% on top of the average price in california right now.

Taxed on energy would not be a good thing. As of right now what is getting myself and this developer on the venture is the 6 million dollar grant that california set in place to create and increase EV car sales. New York and a few other states are on the same band wagon. EV cafe's will become more main stream than McDonalds or any gasoline station because people would have to spend hours at a station to charge a vehicle so it would become more of a place of leisure open 24 hours a day serving god foods, free wifi, flat panel TV's for sports, business, etc...
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/13/6-million-electric-vehicle-infrastructure-california/

I know its possible, we built this bio fuels facility from the ground up on nothing but government grant money.

http://blueskybiofuels.com/


Pay attention to all the exemptions going EV.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/energy/state-electric-vehicle-incentives-state-chart.aspx


The day I become taxed on energy I am going off grid, that simple.....

Cariboocoot

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

California has no tax on energy? Better look again.

SolarPowered

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Cariboocoot wrote: »

California has no tax on energy? Better look again.

There is a small tax on electricity that is included in the price per kwh, and it fluctuates on the demand and where some one lives.
The largest tax on energy is fossil fuel. Literally $1 of every 9/10gallon of gasoline sold goes to bureaucrats. Electricity isn't there yet, but probably will be at some point in the future.
The intent is to become the developer of these Electric car Cafe's, collect the fed tax credit, CSI PBI rebates, california funding, before any serious taxation does take place, build these places with nothing more but incentives. Reap the benefit, and bail and sell the places when the cost of electricity becomes heavily taxed to a point that it exceeds the cost of fossil fuel now.

phred01

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

Power utilities are fighting back against renewables
http://news.yahoo.com/taxes-fees-worldwide-battle-between-utilities-solar-081017571.html

gww1

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

It seems like a funny argument to make, that the grid is being overloaded by grid tie production and can't handle it with out upgrading equipment.

On the other hand they are losing business cause of efficient appliances and people taking a portion of their electric use off grid.

It shows that arguments, that are opposite from each other, can easily be used to make something bad if all that is wanted is something to be bad.

I don't pay attention though, so what do I know.
gww

PS yet the elec. co. wants to pay me if I let them control my ac so they don't have to produce more power.

westbranch

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

As we say all the time, it is cheaper to save it than to make electricity

CDN_VT

Re: Arizona to tax sunshine

westbranch wrote: »

Ernest, Clarified that gallon, ya, the liter thing is bad, I don't want to determine how far I have left to go and then see how many 100Km's I have to go then divide on by the other, etc, etc,etc, you know WIM. Just to figure out if I have enough gas to get me there...

Get that Vee programmed the way you want for the DIM to send you the correct information.
Now as for the litre in Canada , Bring in the equation of "Volume Corrected" to 15* c , and if you measured (As I HAVE) you get 894ml-942ml per sold Litre .. Another scam ..

New 2015 Vee Super/turbo fours (still called T5s) won't be great in AME, but in Europe there on a different fuel motronics platform .