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As more people switch to electric, what will become of Georgia's gas tax?
A bipartisan state committee is investigating the possibility of taxing drivers based on how much they drive as more drivers switch to electric vehicles.
ATLANTA - With more electric and fuel efficient vehicles on the road, Georgia is one of many states where lawmakers are re-examining how they’ll collect taxes that go toward repairing and maintaining those roads.
Georgians haven’t paid a cent of the state’s gas tax since March when Governor Brian Kemp suspended it to combat inflation.
A bipartisan committee of state lawmakers met Wednesday to discuss the future of its gas tax and a possible transition to a tax based on miles-driven.
The new model would charge motorists for every mile they travel. The more you drive, the more you would pay.
"You have to finance the building of roads and that’s done through a gas tax and if you have electric cars you can’t raise the tax, or collect the tax," Emory Professor of Economics Raymond Hill explained.
Hill is a professor at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. He said changing fuel economy standards have impacted state revenue generated from the gas tax.
"People are traveling the same amount of miles but buying less gas so the gas tax has gone down there," he stated.
Hill said the shift toward more electric vehicles on Georgia roads will likely have more of an effect in the long run.
"Less than one percent of the cars on the road right now are electric, so you know at least if you’re not in California, it’s not much of an issue," he said.
While lawmakers discuss the new tax model, Hill said the implementation could get complicated and certain groups may be more affected than others.
"Whether you are taxing heavier vehicles more than lighter vehicles, all of those things would affect consumers in what they’d have to pay," he said.
Drivers won’t have to worry about the change anytime soon but the committee is expected to submit formal recommendations in December.
Next year, GDOT will ask some drivers to participate in a pilot program as they begin establishing the details of how this new tax would work. Three states currently use a miles-traveled tax.