And I was on Gilmore’s campaign to get him elected with that.

Mistake.

What this also does is creates this label where we have no gas tax, brought to you by republicans. Look what The Republicans did! they eliminated the gas tax!!! YEE HAW!!! It’s a good talking point, but it ultimately will only help the oil companies.

Sales tax revenues at the 5% rate (and 2.5% for groceries) yield close to $3 billion a year in revenues, or about 20% of total General Fund revenues. Our sales tax rate is lower than all neighboring states, except Maryland…which also has a 5% rate (and only 6 nationwide have a lower rate). Data did not differentiate how much of the revenue was from general goods vs. how much was grocery sales though.

So, let’s assume 2/3 of fuel sales are for gasoline and 2/3 of the sales tax revenues are from general goods (taxed at double the grocery rate)…since that data is not available. That would lop off about $550 million in fuels tax revenues, give or take a bit. Boosting the sales tax rate on non-grocery items would yield about 320 million in new revenue…a lower net total than lost revenue from fuel sales.

Looking at the news release, my estimate is actually a tad more generous for new revenues…the Governor’s plan says about $280 million in new sales tax revenues. It’s clear that the change of fuels to sales tax is not a revenue gain, or even revenue neutral plan by that switch alone.

But, there’s also the vehicle registration fee increase (read, tax increase) of $15. There are about 7.5 million registered vehicles in the state. That fee increase translates to $112.5 million in new annual revenues, which closes the gap on the shortfall.

Then, the $100 annual fee on hybrids and other alternative fuel vehicles. One source mentioned there are 91000 alternative fuels vehicles in the state (though how many are agency-owned, it did not say). The new fee would levy $9.1 million in new revenue.

Another aspect of this is collecting retail sales taxes on online purchases…to close that tax loophole. Technically, Virginians are supposed to remit the tax in their income tax filings, by keeping track of untaxed online purchases and calculating the applicable sales tax. Unsurprisingly, very few people do that. According to the Governor, fixing this loophole would generate the remainder of new revenues needed to have his plan work.

But, according to the Governor, It would be revenue-neutral at first, but McDonnell anticipates that over the years, the sales tax revenue would grow, and grow at a larger pace than the gas tax would have. He said the sales tax is a more appealing tax than gas, because it’s more likely to grow. So, we’re relying on fuzzy future projections on growth that are hard to predict, in order for this to actually create those *NEW* revenues of $3 billion over 5 years.

And, as if it weren’t bad enough, even Grover Norquist has opposed this measure and has chastised several Republican leaders in the state for proposing it…saying that all new revenue sources should be offset by other tax cuts, that the sales tax rate should be increased by a smaller amount, all fuels taxes should be eliminated, and that revenue dedicated to other areas of state funding should be shifted to transportation instead.

http://news.fredericksburg.com/newsdesk/2013/01/09/mcdonnell-proposes-sweeping-changes-to-transportation-funding/

Just off my own estimates for myself and my wife, I figured what our net change might be…to satisfy my own curiosity. It turns out this would be a net cut in our taxes, of about $3 a month. Our driving patterns yield about $140 a year in fuels tax revenues to the state. Dropping that and calculating the sales tax % increase would generate only about $70 more a year through that, because we do not purchase many consumer goods…plus $30 for vehicle registrations since we own 2 cars. Net difference is -$40 a year.

The only aspects of this proposal that truly make some semblance of sense are the online sales tax correction, and the alternative fuel vehicle fee of $100 a year, because the online sales should be subject to taxation anyway…and the new vehicle fee translates roughly to the lost potential in fuels sales taxes through the reduction or elimination of traditional fuel consumed. But those things should be done anyway, independent of monkeying with the fuels tax and sales tax rate.

The reality is that the poor and the low-income working poor spend virtually all of their income surviving. They literally cannot save like those who actually earn more. They have no “disposable” income to speak of and therefore any sales or consumption tax on any product will hurt them the most. It is simply a fact. That is why the Fair Tax has always included a “prebate” in its system, to combat that regressive taxation on the poor.

There is no way around this tax not hurting the poor and the working poor.

pammala, darling, I know it’s a supreme time-cosuming effort for you to calculate the time between two posts that are right together, what with all that higher-level math involved. Shucks, you can’t even determine the difference between a 42 and a 52. But it took me maybe a second or so. Didn’t eat up too much of my day.

pammala, here is EXACTLY what you said in post #63

“@52 so can dany or any other liberal answer this question…..”

What is that number there? Yep, looks like a 52.

God, pammala, can your posts get any more illiterate? How much are you drinking right now?