The Black Box Tax May Just Charge You For Driving Too Much

The black box tax may go into effect eventually, and if you drive too much, you’ll pay extra.

The idea is to take those who drive more than others and tax them, using the money to help repair the nation’s roads. No, they aren’t planning to track where you are or how fast you’re going (they say). They have cameras and license chips for that, although the black box testing might eventually make its way into GPS and smartphone apps.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, California is one of a few states that will track your location by a tiny chip hidden in your driver’s license, and this technology will eventually go nationwide. They don’t need black box technology for that.

It seems the US government was having trouble figuring out how to foot the bill to fix the crumbling highways throughout the nation. Then it hit them: Why not tax the people who drive the most?

The black box tax is starting in states like California and Oregon mostly because those government officials appear to be ecstatic about the concept. Hasan Ikhrata of Southern California stated, “This really is a must for our nation. It is not a matter of something we might choose to do. There is going to be a change in how we pay these taxes. The technology is there to do it.”

Of course some of the people hit the hardest will be those living in the middle of nowhere. For them, going to the store is a journey all by itself, and some of them barely earn enough extra to pay for gas. You’ve seen how much the price of gas has gone up in the last decade. It’s just about tripled.

Money isn’t the only concern facing some skeptics, who believe there is a definite GPS tracking agenda involved with the black box tax. Mark Perry, a University of Michigan scholar, stated about the technology:

“It would force us to surrender our privacy. Each day more and more of us are required to tell government agencies more and more about ourselves. Do we really want the government collecting data about driving habits?”

Other states either looking into or already having tested it include Nevada, Illinois, and the majority of the Eastern Seaboard. This new tax is already on its way and tested, and as a result, we will probably pay just as much to drive across the country as we would to fly first class. Yes, black box testing has already been done.

Starting as early as 2015 on the West Coast, we can expect the black box tax to become the new norm.