All fines and taxes that set a value on maintaining decent living conditions in our communities should be consolidated under the concept of (please suggest alternative wordings if you like) community use taxes.
Littering, increasing wear and tear on roads (as in trucking taxes or graduated rates in turnpike tolls), using water in dry areas, applying chemicals to land whether a lawn or a farm, using gas-guzzling vehicles, spewing exhaust from cars or industry into the air, destroying wetlands or other natural resources--all should be grouped in the mind of our society as activities that deteriorate community property.
People or companies eating up more than their share of resources or spewing out more than their share of pollution should pay for the mess they leave behind for others to suffer with or clean up for them.
For those who mindlessly buy the propaganda that Tax is a dirty word, rethink the concept of having a society at all, and you'll come up with the same idea. People can't be micromanaged (e.g. make rich people give money to needy people) but people can contribute to a general pot (called tax revenue) and the society (read: government) can determine ways to apply that money for the benefit of everyone.
In the case of Community Use Taxes, the setting of value on certain activities and the collection of such money would not be a mere contribution to a collective pot, but rather the payment of a fee to acknowledge and compensate for the use of community property.
The basic concept is to adjust our notion of freedom so it includes a sense of shared responsibility for the condition of the world outside of our personal property.
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I agree that Community Use taxes work well, especially to deal with responsible usage of community resources. Income tax is still important, though, because of the simple fact that those who CAN pay the taxes have a responsibility to do so. If I have five kids and make $25,000/yr and am running all over town to take them places, should I be paying more total tax than the double-income no-children household down the street raking in 100k? More use tax, sure. More total tax? I simply can't do it. So as long as you've got the balance of both kinds of tax, it can help the community.
One of the problems with the concept is the integral philosophical differences within the USA today as to the responsibility of the community to the individual. The right of center political trend seems to indicate that, to take the previous example, someone who undertakes the responsibility to have a large number of kids must therefore undertake the individual responsibility of supporting them and contributing accordingly to the general maintenance of public facilities. This ignores, of course, the fact that someone contributing to the population is providing more potential taxpayers and workers and thinkers. My own tendencies are liberal and I take a more generous point of view to community members but the political environment for community as opposed to individual responsibilities seems not to be favorable.
I think the hard part is designing taxes that are inexpensive to collect and reduce bad activities without encouraging bad activities. An example may illustrate the range of considerations.
I worked for the City of New York Budget Bureau when this kind of idea was floated in the 1970s. One that was implemented was mandatory five-cent deposits for soda bottles and cans. The intent was to take some space-consuming refuge off roadsides and keep it out of landfills. The deposit applied only to "bad" carbonated beverages, not "good" non-carbonated juices. I would argue that it contributed to the success of Snapple. Is Snapple litter less of a burden on society that Coke litter ? For that matter, is a discarded brightly colored composite (non-biodegradable) cup less ugly than an unlabelled glass bottle. Some enterprising types imported cans and bottles from states where no deposit was collected and turned them in to collect the deposits. This required providing beverage containers with evidence of eligibility for deposits and separate bar codes for containers from states with different container-deposit practices. This limits some interstate commerce. Also, laws had to be passed to force any retailer selling soda to provide a way for consumers to return the cans and coolect the depost. Vending machines were exempted and smaller retailers evaded the burden. Is that fair ? Inevitably, some of the containers were never turned in for the increasingly insignificant five-cent deposit. The bottlers liked this. Eventually, though, the state exerted its power to appropriate abandoned property and took the money from the bottlers. The money was not passed back to municipalities that have the burden of disposing of the unreturned containers.
I like this idea a lot. People who commute by bicycle or train shouldn't have to pay as much for road maintenance.
Several other commenters have pointed out issues with this idea. Any change in taxes will bring up a lot of issues. Income tax is riddled with fairness issues and always will be (at least by someone). The issues expressed don't reduce my percieved value of this idea.
There are several things that should NOT be based on a use tax: police, fire protection, defense, anything related to raising a child (like education), economy improvements.