[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Yep, this guy should have checked with his state and local governments first about this issue before proceeding with his otherwise excellent plan.

In Pennsylvania, if you want to build your own ethanol still and make your own alternative fuel (for a Flex Fuel vehicle such as a newer model Chevy S-10 pickup), then you're required to submit monthly returns on ethanol usage (not production), along with payments at .21 per gallon burned. The tax sucks, but it still beats 31 cents per gallon that PA charges, and if you use your Flex Fuel vehicle for work and make your own fuel, then you can file for a .53 per gallon federal tax credit at tax time (you've got to keep a mileage log though). The tax laws on this stuff are definitely obsolete and need updating, especially since the state and federal governments are trying to encourage alternative fuels usage.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

...but it still beats 31 cents per gallon that PA charges (for regular gasoline) usage.

Oops!

[TWohlford]

“The tax laws on this stuff are definitely obsolete and need updating...”

At one time in England, home owners were charged per window. The predictable result was that many home simply closed up their windows, and God only knows how many people died from fires and diseases.

Then there was the tax on soap (true story!).....

[omnivore]

... the state and federal governments are trying to encourage alternative fuels usage.

I appreciate the idea and wish they were, but not yet, they're not.

When the states and feds actually do get around to "encouraging alternative fuels usage," we'll know it, because the first thing they'll do on that happy day is reduce the tax on biofuels compared to fossil (or mineral anyway, don't mean to get wrapped up in that whole thing) fuels.

How about a road tax formula based on vehicle weight and miles driven? Ignore the fuel completely. Or roll a road fee into the sticker price of new vehicles based on weight and 150,000 miles estimated life (quibble over the number). The point is, there has never been a good reason to put road taxes on the fuel rather than the vehicles, the annual registration, or some other method of collection, other than a couple possibilities.

One would be utter lazyness on the part of government, to blow it off on the gas companies to collect the road tax. The other would be for government to put the road tax on the fuel companies, to make it seem more like a tax paid on the fuel, rather than a tax paid for the road.

After all, if people were reminded too freqently that they were PAYING for the road, they might eventually come to the conclusion that they do indeed OWN the road which they have paid for. And it's harder for People In Government to pass cretinous laws and regulations on things that people have a rightful claim to own, than on things the people are convinced they don't own, or that some nebulous "public" (read "collective," comrade) might in some lame sense own, but which of course needs to be ruled by pinheads in government. Not impossible, they do it anyway, just harder.

[Jimmy Valentine]

What if instead you got a permit to make drinking alcohol in limited quantities?

Could you use that as fuel and avoid the tax?

If my memory is working right there used to be a lot of illegal stills working up in the Endless Mountains area.

[ReignOfError]

In Pennsylvania, if you want to build your own ethanol still

Best build it back in the woods where the revenuers cain't find it.