Vehicle registration fees--RIPOFF

[JDgreen227]

Last night I renewed the license tabs for both our vehicles, cost close to $150 each for a (censored) tiny little sticker because our state bases registration fees on vehicle cost when purchased new. Wife and I drive maybe 5,000 miles per year combined, and a driver who has a vehicle comparable in price to ours who drives 40,000 miles a year still pays the same registration fee we do.

My state tells us the license fees we pay go to build and maintain roads, and the roads here are in rather poor shape. It seems to me if the state would begin collecting registration fees based on the number of miles a driver put on their vehicles per year, rather than a flat fee, they would possibly pick up additional revenue that way.

Yes, I know it wouldn't be easy to monitor the actual mileage of all the cars and trucks here. But since they (the state) is considering raising registration fees here in order to extort more money for road repairs, that would penalize low mileage drivers like me. I would rather see them monitor road usage instead, and base registration fees on that.

Any comments? Thanks.

 

[Jimbrown]

Consider yourself lucky. My F250 here in Arizona is $540.

 

[brin]

It is the same here...I feel your pain and it makes perfect sense...We live in the rural area of our country so we have poor fire protection the nearest hydrant is 2 miles away, hence we pay a higher home owners insurance premium than someone living close to the hydrant or a fire station...it is over 6 miles from us...We have sparse police protection...we might see a sheriffs car once a month and when we called them once to report a suspicious car...it took them over 30 minutes to respond, We have no county water, sewer and no cable service or natural gas....But guess what...We still pay the same Property Taxes as county residents that have all of the utilities and amenities..

There has to be a more equitable way to handle this.

 

[Diamondpilot]

You are paying 1/3 what we pay in Indiana for similar vehicles to what you have.

As for the miles thing it really all averages out. I am sure there was a time when you drove 5 times what you are now days.

I do not like it any better than you but its the way it is. Yes, some states are more expensive or less expensive but that just changes the tax rate on income, property, and more importantly fuel taxes.

Chris

 

[chopped]

We had a ""temp.''' surcharge two years ago. its still there.. In some cases its doubled my reg rate.. and the roads oh my lol

 

[ME83]

Do you also have an annual vehicle excise tax? Or is it rolled into the registration?

 

[schmism]

Our tags went up a couple of years ago... it jumped like 50%.....

states raising "taxes" without, you know.... raiseing taxes...

 

[MMagis]

Wow, I had no idea how lucky we were here. My '01 Chevy truck will cost me about $50 to renew.

 

[JDgreen227]

Do you also have an annual vehicle excise tax? Or is it rolled into the registration?

Registration fee is good for 12 months, no other excise taxes, etc. included.

 

[clemsonfor]

Last night I renewed the license tabs for both our vehicles, cost close to $150 each for a (censored) tiny little sticker because our state bases registration fees on vehicle cost when purchased new. Wife and I drive maybe 5,000 miles per year combined, and a driver who has a vehicle comparable in price to ours who drives 40,000 miles a year still pays the same registration fee we do.

My state tells us the license fees we pay go to build and maintain roads, and the roads here are in rather poor shape. It seems to me if the state would begin collecting registration fees based on the number of miles a driver put on their vehicles per year, rather than a flat fee, they would possibly pick up additional revenue that way.

Yes, I know it wouldn't be easy to monitor the actual mileage of all the cars and trucks here. But since they (the state) is considering raising registration fees here in order to extort more money for road repairs, that would penalize low mileage drivers like me. I would rather see them monitor road usage instead, and base registration fees on that.

Any comments? Thanks.

There is a huge debate similar to your point in congress over federal fuel tax. Reason as most of you know and im sure have heard is that these new hybrids that use less fuel and worse the electrics. I know they dont weigh much but a nissan leaf prolly weighs the same or more than a honda fit with all the nissans batteries. The Nissan will buy no fuel over its life the honda will, but the nissan still drives on the same state and federal highways which are subsidised/paidfor with fuel tax. What to do?

 

[atgreene]

My '09 GMC 3500 is $600/year
My '05 GMC 5500 is $540/year
My '63 Oshkosh that I drive 200-300 miles per year is $380

Even my Kubota is somewhere around $50 for equipment tags.

The only thing plus id that most of that money goes to the town for road maintenance, not to the state. Granted, it goes to the state first, they then turn it back to the town through a grant, but hey, we have to find a job for some politicians relative.

 

[Bird]

I can remember when Oklahoma license was based on the vehicle value and Texas was based on weight. I don't know what Oklahoma does now, but Texas came up with a combination formula for weight and value at one time, and now Texas Registration Fees are apparently going to be "simplifed" this year. But the older fees include a lot of little fees added by different counties. At least for this year registration for my old 2001 Ford Ranger was $58.16 while the 2002 Ford Crown Victoria was $54.30.

And yes, so far it makes no difference how many miles they're driven. I used to drive over 30k on my own vehicle each year, plus what my wife drove, and of course I drove a city vehicle a lot of miles. Now . . . we put about 7k a year on each of the 2 vehicles.

 

[2manyrocks]

We pay about $85.00 each year for vehicle registration in our small TN county. I think $25 of it goes to fund a new county jail. Considering the number of DUIs, I don't mind paying $25.00 a year to help lock them up.

Now the State of TN has a gas tax of 21.4 cents a gallon. Tennessee Department of Transportation

 

[Diamondpilot]

Our state tax on gas is now about $.30 per gallon. With the federal taxes we are at nearly $.70 per gallon for just taxes.

Chris

 

[mnbowhunter1960]

About a third of what we pay in Minnesota also

 

[RollingsFarms]

i'm scared to see what my new truck taxes are going to be. my 04 Z71 with 110,000 miles was $238 last time i paid it and i didn't even qualify for the high mileage discount.

 

[MoKelly]

our state bases registration fees on vehicle cost when purchased new.

Some folks would say this is just the rich paying their fair share of the cost. Sound familiar in the whole debt ceiling fiasco?

MoKelly

 

[PossumHound]

Last night I renewed the license tabs for both our vehicles, cost close to $150 each for a (censored) tiny little sticker because our state bases registration fees on vehicle cost when purchased new. Wife and I drive maybe 5,000 miles per year combined, and a driver who has a vehicle comparable in price to ours who drives 40,000 miles a year still pays the same registration fee we do.

My state tells us the license fees we pay go to build and maintain roads, and the roads here are in rather poor shape. It seems to me if the state would begin collecting registration fees based on the number of miles a driver put on their vehicles per year, rather than a flat fee, they would possibly pick up additional revenue that way.

Yes, I know it wouldn't be easy to monitor the actual mileage of all the cars and trucks here. But since they (the state) is considering raising registration fees here in order to extort more money for road repairs, that would penalize low mileage drivers like me. I would rather see them monitor road usage instead, and base registration fees on that.

Any comments? Thanks.

Be careful what you wish for! It would actually be very easy to track your miles with a vehicle GPS unit (it can be done also with a GPS equiped cell phone). Not only total miles but where and when the vehicle was driven. I don't think we want our government keeping that close a watch on us- at least I don't. Cops are already using cell phone data to track folks under investigation.

PH

 

[bcp]

There is a huge debate similar to your point in congress over federal fuel tax. Reason as most of you know and im sure have heard is that these new hybrids that use less fuel and worse the electrics. I know they dont weigh much but a nissan leaf prolly weighs the same or more than a honda fit with all the nissans batteries. The Nissan will buy no fuel over its life the honda will, but the nissan still drives on the same state and federal highways which are subsidised/paidfor with fuel tax. What to do?

Battery tax and tire tax.



Bruce

 

[JDgreen227]

At one time Michigan based it's vehicle registration fees on weight, I remember when I purchased a used 1990 F-150 the license fee in 1992 was about $44 and the fee was based on the weight of the truck...they used the base weight of the lightest model, short box, standard cab, six cylinder, stick, no air, etc. The factory weight I can find was about 4000 lbs.

Then they changed to a value based registration fee, our 1993 Olds Cutlass Supreme had a sticker price of about $26,000 and it weighed a lot less than the F-150 did but the price for registration jumped to almost $100 per year !!!

The only advantage to value-based registration fees it that for those who itemize deductions on their federal income taxes, the value based fees are deductible.