Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, August 09, 2001 at 12:12PM :
In Reply to: Re: You call that expensive? try Connecticut's fees,,,, posted by Keith in Washington on Thursday, August 09, 2001 at 10:57AM :
I too live in Washington (about 5 mi from the guy that did that initiative actually) and agree with you as far as license fees being too high and the money going where it shouldn't, but I couldn't disagree with you more on that initiative to lower the fees. Yes it did reduce most people's tab fees because most people drive new cars and instead of being an value-based excise tax it is now a flat $30, plus $30 more for assorted extra fees. But one of the small pleasures of owning an old truck used to be the fact that I only paid maybe $30 total for my tabs while the yuppie in the beemer or lexus paid over $500. But the fact is my truck's worth maybe $1000 and his yupmobile's worth 50X that and he still wasn't paying 50X the tax. Most of my friends have old beater cars and their tab fees have all gone up under the new system. I'm no communist, but I just had a hard time sympathizing with guys that can afford $50K for a new car and then whine about the "unfair" license fees. Furthermore the old excise tax was income-tax deductible which cuts it by about 40% right there for the yuppies. If there's anything unfair about taxing vehicles based on their value, then property tax should be flat-rate too and everybody's house should get taxed the same no matter what it's worth. I suppose another thing that doesn't help me sympathize is the same lexus & beemer-driving millionaires that complain about their tab fees are also the ones that complain to the city about my old trucks in my yard. There, got that off my chest! And by the way, the gross weight fees did NOT go down and that's the killer on the deuce-and-a-half.
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