With the price of fuel..........

[Twitchin Kitten]

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Same here really. Top it off we have 50 States that have their own tax system, then top that off with federal taxes.

You get robbed by keeping the Royal Family too. You get taxed up the ass to pay the government to run, which is understandable but then the Royals mooch off taxes to live in a style fit for a Queen/King. I hope for all that loot they bring in, they have some semblance of power for SOMETHING. If not, they're the biggest welfare whores on the planet!

I'm not 100% sure how a Parliamentary system works, I have a hard enough time trying to understand our system! If you want to try to help Americans understand your system of government, Phinger, there is a thread in the politics forum way back to last year around this time or so where I tried to get some Brits to explain. I would love to learn more.

[Phast Phinger Phil]

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Our parliamentary system is real simple: You bullshit until you find enough people dumb enough to vote you in as MP, then you leech the fuck outta taxpayers by claiming "expenses" for a second home, because you don't happen to live in the area where you got elected. Claim expenses for travelling between your two homes... claim expenses for everything from a toilet seat to a floating duck palace. And you don't have to worry about being caught making fraudulent claims - just say sorry, wait for the heat to die down, and then claim for something else.

MPs have to work hard though - when there are no sand-castle competitions to judge, they have to stand up and spout crap about new laws for "dangerous cycling" or having a referendum on whether to change a shit voting system for one that's even shittier and costs millions to implement.

You have to keep up the bullshit though. If people stop voting for you, you become an Ex-MP and they put you on TV and make you polish the floor with your arse:

[LKTraz]

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A license to operate your TV? How utterly ridiculous!
I wonder......do they require a license to distribute licenses? And what about a license distributor licensing license? Would that come from the ministry of frivolous licensing?

Wow. It seems like a Monty Python sketch but sadly it's closer to reality.

Relating to the original topic, the "road taxes" here vary from state to state and the method of collection is shoved away from the passenger motorist but piled onto the commercial transportation sector. Freight movers are the ones who get hit with the big bills for infrastructure. The exception (sort of) is with toll bridges and highways. Still the movers of goods foot the higher end of the bill.

Example: The toll for a passenger car to cross the George Washington bridge from NJ to NYC is $8.00 but 5 axle trucks pay $40.00

The Pennsylvania Turnpike is the same except it also includes a fee schedule based also on the weight of the vehicle as well as number of axles which put that vehicle into different classes and thus different toll rates. For comparison purposes: A class 1 vehicle (standard passenger car) going from the PA/NJ border to the PA/OH border would pay $28.00 . A class 7 (tractor trailer weighing 62,001 lbs to 80,000 lbs) pays $151.60. Now get into oversize loads and it gets astronomical! A class 9 (weighing 100,001 lbs and over) would pay $1,124.55!!!!! Add to that the cost of possibly 2 escort vehicles and you see where it can go.
(Rates as per official PA Turnpike rate chart effective 1-2-11 http://www.paturnpike.com/toll/tollmileage.aspx )

The average heavy hauling truck pays in the neighborhood of $14,000.00 in highway taxes each year. Multiply that by the estimated 4 million heavy trucks using the roads and you get an assload of cash.


Of course these expenses are reflected in hauling rates and trickle down to the end consumer ultimately affecting retail prices.