CA: Trigger upheld for car tax hike

Sac Bee ^ | 3/11/03 | Alexa H. Bluth and John Hill

[NormsRevenge]

Lawyers for Gov. Gray Davis and state Controller Steve Westly announced an agreement Monday that ended a weeks-long impasse over midyear budget cuts and could lead to a tripling of the annual vehicle license fee -- without a vote of the Legislature or the public.

[NormsRevenge]

In a joint legal opinion, the chief counsels for Westly and Davis' Department of Finance concluded that a shortage of state cash can trigger an automatic increase in the fees.

legal counsels,, you mean stooges... Larry and Curly say Yeah with Mo abstaining.

[NormsRevenge]

..could lead to a tripling of the annual vehicle license fee -- without a vote of the Legislature or the public.

Sounds like taxation without representation.

[Drango]

*This just in*

In a new poll, Davis' popularity has dropped from 27% to 5%.

[John123]

Sounds like taxation without representation.

Exactly. This is unconstitutional!

[NormsRevenge]

Same thing In the San Jose Mercury News

Plan sets stage for increase in car tax

[trebb]

Heck, you want to see high car tag prices, move to Mississippi. My Jeep liberty cost over $400.00 for the first year tags and will probably only drop about $25.00 for the second.

[Howie]

"In a new poll, Davis' popularity has dropped from 27% to 5%."

Good one!

[Uncle Hal]

Tom McClintock, a good guy and fiscal conservative in the state legislature, has maintained that if the Dems pull this and bypass the state legislature he will go to court to declare it illegal and at the same time try and get a ballot iniatitive on the ballot to repeal all car taxes. His polling shows the voters would pass it over whelmingly.

[CdMGuy]

Don't believe the $124 figure. It is a BS number put forward to try to minimize the impact of the fee increase. The original fee was 2% of a car's fair market value. This is also bogus because the state set the rate of depreciation so that the fair market value as defined by them is more than the true market value.

The tax was reduced in two stages by 1/3 each stage so that today, it is .67%. So, if you own a $30,000 car, the current annual tax is $200. That tax will increase to $600 under the Democrats plan, an increase of $400, not the $124 they claim.

To get to their figure of $124, you have to include all of the old clunkers that are registered in the state. Only low income immigrants, i.e., illegal aliens, own and drive these cars without insurance.

[Redcloak]

Sounds like taxation without representation.

Nope. This agrees with a simplistic reading of the registration renewal I just received. It lists the license fee at its full value and then subtracts the refund amount. The full tax has been there all along; we just don't pay it all. Of course, it will still look like a Democrat tax increase to those who weren't paying attention. I just wonder if the CA-GOP will have the guts to try to take advantage of this. My guess is that they won't. They'll roll over and play dead, just like they always do.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks. The politicians giveth and the politicians taketh away. It's in the fine print.

That fee "rollback" a few years ago didn't seem to stop the demRats from spending like drunken sailors in either case.

I guess it was their insurance policy.

Maybe we need to cancel that contract as McClintock would propose.

A state govt that is nothing more then a parasite should not hold the pursestrings of those it "tends" to.