Thursday, February 2, 2012

Proposed Bill Would Give WA Cities Power To Charge Own Gas Taxes

A bill expected to go to a hearing of the state Transportation Committee today would give Washington cities the power to charge their own gas taxes and increase car-tab collections.

Senate Bill 4306 would amend existing law to allow cities to enact a local gas tax of one. The tax would have to be approved in a ballot measure by city voters. Also under the bill, cities and counties could add a 1 percent motor-vehicle excise tax, or $100 on a $10,000 vehicle per year, with voter approval.

I haven't heard anything yet on if the Committee has already had the hearing, but will post an update when I do. In the meantime, the Seattle Times has the whole story.

2 comments:

Charles said...

I think the Excise tax would be pretty hard to get votes, people do not like to have a tax they can deduct from their federal income tax. :)
I like gas taxes as they are paid more by big users of gas than by little users of gas like me.

SRTC Staff said...

You've got a point there @Charles. Then you can kind of 'choose' how much you pay too. If you're particularly broke, you just don't put gas in your car and find another way to get where you're going, such as the bus, bike, etc.


About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.