I started driving in Florida in my teens. While my mom paid the cost of car insurance, I paid for most other expenses with that car. For instance, I paid to register the car. In order to renew the car’s registration, I jotted down the odometer reading (total mileage). At the time, I simply followed instructions and didn’t obsess about why they wanted this information. I simply rushed to get in and out of the DMV as quickly as possible.
Eventually, I learned why they noted the mileage. They set the cost of renewing your registration to be proportional to the amount of wear-and-tear on the roads. The more you ‘damaged’ the roads, the higher the cost to register your vehicle. They calculated this fee from two numbers: the weight of your vehicle and the distance you drove it. The rationale? It should cost more to register a 2000 Suburban driven 25k miles than a 2023 Miata driven 2k miles.
This remains one of the few policies from Florida that I prefer over my new state of Washington.
The more you have, the more you pay
The policy for registration in Washington has generally been “the more you have, the more you pay”. The cost of your registration is proportional to the bluebook value of your car, not the wear-and-tear that it imposes on the road. It’ll cost you a fraction of the price to register that 2000 Suburban over the 2023 Miata, independent of how much you may drive each.
The reason I describe this as ‘generally’ is because this hasn’t always been the case. Washington residents conducted petitions, collected signatures, and put it on the ballot. They abolished this policy for a few years, though it’s currently on again. I applauded putting it on the ballot. If the government collects your tax dollars (yes, it’s a form of tax), you should absolutely have a voice on how that money is spent.
That said, the cost of registering the car, as high as it has been, is a figure with which I’ve made my peace. I won’t spend hours of my time, organizing petitions, collecting signatures, or strategizing television ads. Those extra few dollars won’t fracture my life or cause severe distress. Their original premise was right, I can afford it.
“Any taxation is theft.”
I’ve seen people assert this on Twitter. I’m sure that in some ways they believe that it makes sense; it doesn’t. Let’s take the very simple task of maintaining the roads. Asserting that we should not fund this in the form of taxes implies that:
- They will no longer maintain the roads. Period. The government will neglect them to a state of disrepair. They will never fix that pothole on your street that damaged your car. Of course, you could fix that pothole.
- You pay for what you use when you use it. This means that every single street will have a toll booth to collect money for maintenance. These toll booths themselves may cost more than the actual maintenance.
- There are sensors on your car (or GPS’s), and the government tracks every single street which you traverse and bills you. This is plausible, though again the cost of overhead is staggering. I won’t even mention the potential privacy concerns.
Or maybe everyone pays the average. You may pay more than your share for road maintenance, but you may get more than your share for another government funded program (like libraries or public parks). In other words, it all comes out in the wash. This is the tax model.
Taxation without representation
The problem does not lie in collecting taxes, it lies with collecting taxes but not being represented. In fact, the angst of “taxation without representation” was one of the sources of the Revolutionary War. If you disagree with a law or policy, you may oppose it. Even if your state legislation rushed to get it through, you may get it abolished. First, you simply need to get a whole lot of like-minded citizens to sign a petition to get it on the ballot. Next, you need to persuade enough people to vote for that ballot initiative. Though much like the large fees on the car’s registration in Washington, it can (and has been) abolished.
Naturally, you may also affect policy by choosing a particular candidate for office. They each campaign and pitch their message, and you vote for the candidate that best fits your needs. In turn they should represent you and follow through with their campaign promises. Naturally, this represents the best-case scenario. However, I’m not going to describe that scenario, I’m going to rewind for a bit.
Imagine that you’re taxed all the time. You pay your car registration. When you get your pay stub, you see what is preemptively deducted as taxes for the government. As you check out of the grocery store, you pay sales tax. This all functions like everyone else, with one teeny tiny exception. You do not get representation. You may not oppose a law or policy. When you walk by a petition for a policy with which you disagree, you may not sign it. When that issue comes up on the ballot, you may not vote for it. You cannot even vote for your preferred candidate.
All this because you are not a US citizen.
The tax dilemma
This is the case of the unstoppable force meeting the immoveable object. Legal immigrants (like recent graduates getting jobs in technology) become contributing members of society and pay taxes in a number of different scenarios. For instance, they may buy a house and pay property taxes. However, as non-citizens, we do not allow them to vote. Is this even permissible? The answer is surprisingly simple. Either the force is not quite unstoppable, or the object is not completely immoveable. For instance:
- If they pay taxes, give them a voice in how that tax money is spent. In other words, allow legal immigrants to vote. They literally paid for the right to vote.
- If we refuse to give them representation, do not collect taxes from them. Give them tax exempt status. Just allow them to collect all those receipts and refund them their money come Tax Day. Similarly, set their property taxes on their homes to zero.
You may push back and assert that the “taxation without representation” clause only applies to citizens. However, at a basic level, doesn’t that imply unfairness? Do laws against exploitation only apply to citizens? Do we abstain from prosecuting thieves and murderers if the victims aren’t citizens? What is to stop rapists from targeting International female students?
My opinion? Establish a threshold in taxes where a legal immigrant has earned the right to vote… For instance, you’ve paid more than $5k in total taxes (income, property, or sales tax).