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Owners of gas-guzzling SUVs and other heavy vehicles who use them entirely for business can get Uncle Sam to pay for four or more years of fuel costs -- in the form of tax breaks. It's hard to think of a worse formula for wrecking the country.

How would you like the U.S. government to send you a check that would pay for five years' worth of gasoline?

Well, it can be arranged.

Not everyone is eligible, of course. But if you use a vehicle 100% for business and purchase it, new or used, from a select list of big-time gas-guzzlers, Uncle Sam is ready to help you out.

Yes, I'm talking about the well-publicized special tax break for vehicles with a gross weight of at least 6,000 pounds. Gross weight is the weight of the vehicle including fuel, passengers and payload. Because of this, gross weight can be a good deal more than the empty weight of the vehicle.

Forty-one domestic and 15 foreign SUVs qualify for this tax break. The Porsche Cayenne, a notably business-like vehicle, is among them. As a consequence, while the depreciation write-off for any passenger car used for business is limited to only $2,960 in 2005, down from $10,610 in 2004, those claiming 100% business use of these SUVs could deduct 100% of the $89,665 price of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo during 2003 and until late October 2004. For those who bought in time, the write-off represented an immediate income tax savings of $31,383, provided the buyer was in the 35% tax bracket. Think of it as a bagatelle for the non-indigent from the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003.

One of the particularly compelling uses I've seen of this tax break was a bright parrot-green Hummer2 parked at a luxury marina in Burnt Store, Fla. A sign on the driver's door advertised a dress shop.

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 is it just me or does that sounds dumb? everyone who owns a business should go out and by a suv and speed up global warming at an exponential rate.  

You are correct JTsang - it is a stupid policy and it proves the Republicans are in the pocket of big business. How else can anyone explain a tax policy that encourages - by essentially giiving away for free- huge gas guzzlers? Is it any coincidence that we get a oilman for a president and gas prices have never been higher? Is it any wonder that we get the former president of Halliburton as VP and we get skyrocketing oil prices and no bid contracts for Halliburton companies like KBR as we go to war? Come to think of it now - is it true that we have two draft dodgers who were "busy" during Vietnam now leading our country to war in the part of the world that produces- you guessed it - OIL!