Comment by kristofferR | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kristofferR | Hacker News Reader

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Car taxes here in Norway are already sky high for polluting cars, often more than 100% of the non-taxed car value. Fuel prices are around $7.5 USD per gallon.

Yet, car taxes amounts to only 44 billion NOK in income for the state per year (it was 70 billion NOK in 2007, before electric cars became popular here) [1]. The income/fortune tax on the other hand amounts to 248 billion NOK in income to the state per year [2].

Car taxes are nowhere near sufficient, and will never be. If taxes were increased to even more per polluting car, it would just drive even faster adoption to electric cars and a even more rapid car tax income decline. Replacing the income tax with a personal car carbon tax can't work.

[1] https://www.aftenposten.no/okonomi/i/Vy9xV/Bilavgiftene-har-...

[2] https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/62bcdd722d344cd0ac6...

Gas, road and car taxes are regressive as well. They disproportionately impact poor people. People who need a car in order to live in cheaper suburbs outside of town. Now maybe a luxury car tax is ok..

> If taxes were increased to even more per polluting car, it would just drive even faster adoption to electric cars and a even more rapid car tax income decline.

Sounds like a good way to lose tax revenue.

Exactly my point.

However, I read the transcript of the podcast now, and it turns out it doesn't actually talk about replacing the income tax with a carbon tax, but rather reducing the income tax and offsetting the reduction with an increase of carbon taxes.

That on the other hand is a great idea, it's much like we're doing in Norway already.

One aspect of a carbon tax (or the tax discussed in the podcast) is a steady tax increase. I guess the intended function is to have the tax revenue stay the same even with declining carbon use. Hopefully carbon tax revenue would go to zero, but I'm sure there would be other things to tax when that happens.

Initially when the parent comment mentioned the income tax, I didn't remember that it would be used to offset a carbon tax. Their point about discouraging work made sense and was the thing I remembered.

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