A few election cycles ago, I wrote that the stereotype about Seattle always passing a tax increase was just that. I mean we’re probably more willing to tax ourselves than the average Washingtonian. And we’re able to pass library and school levies pretty easily. But we are concerned both with how progressive/regressive the taxes we pass are and what they pay for. Since it looks like Seattle has rejected public financing with a slight tax increase (albeit in a tight race) we can have a more proper discussion of what taxes Seattle will support and what taxes we won’t?
Since my post a couple years ago, we’ve rejected that transit measure and now the clean elections measure. We’ve also passed taxes for libraries and education in the last few years, and helped pass the Medic 1 and other King County measures.
Of course the iconic tax measure that Seattle rejected in the last decade or so is still probably Early Learning and Care Campaign, AKA the Latte Tax. That would have paid for education in the city. Now, we happily supported education in the city in other measures. Maybe it’s that it was made fun of pretty much everywhere, maybe there doesn’t seem to be much connection between education and espresso drinks, maybe it was somewhat regressive.
And the regressive nature of the transit package was even more evident. A flat fee as opposed to a more progressive tax on the value of the car was one of the main reasons people opposed the measure, at least one of the main arguments against it. Seattle doesn’t really oppose taxes, but we understand that when the poor end up paying a disproportionate share, they tend to be tougher to enact (I think that’s different from the state as a whole).
As more measures come forth, and Seattle and King County are asked to vote on tax measures, I hope we figure out how to make them as progressive as possible, and how to make sure they go to good things.
The big flaw with car tab taxes is they discriminate against occasional drivers, who are taxed the same as daily commuters. A senior citizen on a limited income who drives 2,500 miles a year is made to pay the same tax as a commuter who drives 2,500 miles a month. That’s unfair, and hits a vulnerable group.
The big flaws with gas taxes (there are several) are: (a) increasing mileage efficiency of vehicles reduces revenues, while maintenance needs stay the same or increase; (b) the gas tax is fixed by law at a set number of cents per gallon, and must be raised to keep up with inflation by legislative action at periodic intervals, or road maintenance will suffer; (c) it’s a dedicated tax that can’t be used for other transportation needs, forcing county and state governments to resort to unfair and regressive taxes (such as the car tab tax) for such needs; (d) if electric cars become popular, the gas tax may collapse as a funding mechanism for transportation projects.
It’s really time to rethink the whole subject of transportation taxes. Insurance companies have begun experimenting with pricing car insurance according to how many miles are driven. Although this idea hasn’t seen widespread adoption yet, that industry at least is thinking about it.
That’s obviously the direction transportation taxes need to go. The gas tax more or less charges drivers according to how much they drive, with a built-in penalty for heavy vehicles that use more gas and gas-guzzler vehicles. That’s pretty fair, and for decades it satisfied our roadbuilding and road maintenance needs, but less so today. As electric cars come into vogue, and higher CAFE standards cut into gas tax revenues, and computer technology makes it readily possible to track vehicle use, a mileage-based vehicle use tax makes more and more sense. If we can collect I-520 tolls with a computer chip, why can’t we use the same computer chip to collect mileage taxes?
The car tab tax is a lousy substitute for the gas tax, which itself is rapidly becoming ineffective and obsolete. It’s time to move forward into the future.
@1 Bah humbug on your first point. A typical middle-class retiree owns a 20-year-old Buick or Volvo or maybe a Subaru, not a nearly new $50,000 Beemer or (like some of Rodney Tom’s neighbors) a Maserati or a Bentley. Hell, my wife and I both still work and now share a 1997 Outback (I commute by bus) and hope to make it last until there are cheap used electrics on the aftermarket, unless we’re too decrepit by then to drive. Or maybe when we retire we’ll get rid of the thing and just rent a set of wheels occasionally when we really need it.
The way we geezers would really end up taking it in the teeth would be if the state imposed a “gas guzzler” or “clunker” tax. No batter how ancient or gargantuan your heap may be, it isn’t going to use much in the way of resources if you’re hardly driving it.
@2 The proposal I saw is $100 per $10,000 of value, or something like that. Anything that runs is worth at least 10 grand. (I remember when 10 grand could buy a shiny new 2-seater convertible, but that was in a different century.) And the way the pre-Eyman-initiative car tab tax worked based the tax on a “book” value that had nothing to do with the condition your vehicle was in — no deduction for accident damage, high miles, etc. A $20 car tab tax might be reasonable, but we already have, and this isn’t a $20 tax they’re talking about. I understand there aren’t other taxing options available, everything else is already taken, but that doesn’t make this a “good” or acceptable tax.