It should come as no big surprise that liberal media outlet, The Boston Globe is in favor of a progressive personal property tax for motor vehicles. They propose changing the Commonwealth of Taxachusetts law so that the property tax on motor vehicles can be raised above 2.5%. Smaller more fuel efficient econoboxes would be taxed at 1%, while evil, gas guzzling SUVs would see a 60% increase in their tax rate to 4%.

Naturally they wrap all this class warfare up in a nice little 'do it for the environment' mantra. Of course, this does nothing more than shift more of the tax burden to the middle and upper class families with large SUVs and Minivans, while poor folks see their share of the property tax burden dwindle up to 60%.

Also depending on where they center the tax structure, it could net an overall tax increase, if there are far more gas guzzlers on the road than econobox death traps. Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation echoes that point by noting that it would be difficult to fine-tune the scale each year to keep it genuinely revenue-neutral. Of course, that is exactly the point. 'Rich' people's cars could be easily lumped into higher tax brackets with very little notice. Likewise, it would also be pretty easy to fudge the split with some fuzzy math.

What really burns me up is when they try to pass off ignorant logic off like this:

But the Romney tax shift does not prohibit ownership of heavily polluting cars; it simply forces their purchasers to pay more of their share of the health and environmental costs that such vehicles carry.

Where are they getting that? What increase in health and environmental costs? Larger cars probably cut health costs when accidents are considered.

Besides, gas guzzlers already pay more taxes than non-gas guzzlers. It's called the GAS TAX! You pay extra taxes with every extra gallon you pump into your vehicle. Of course the Boston Globe doesn't mention that.

Something else the Boston Globe doesn't mention is that gas guzzlers already pay more PROPERTY TAX. There is a definite trend of automobiles that gas guzzlers tend to be more expensive and econoboxes to be less expensive in terms of purchase price and market value. Since property taxes are based on those values, a person driving a $40,000 SUV already pays 4 times the property tax of a person driving a $10,000 hatch back.

Also considering that economy cars depreciate must faster than luxury cars, the annual property tax on economy cars depreciates just as fast. Next year when that SUV is still worth $35,000 and the hatch back is only worth $7,000, the SUV owner's tax only decreased 12.5%, whereas the hatch back owner's tax decreased 30%.

And don't forget that people that buy the more expensive gas guzzlers pay more sales tax as well.

It seems to me that owners of larger vehicles are already paying more than 'their fair share' of the tax burden.