Autos are finally appreciating in value!

The intent was to be an incentive to get people to buy hybrids when they were first being produced and were not yet popular. Hybrids are now exrtremely popular and no longer need an incentive to get people to buy them.
If/when fully electric cars are introduced at a reasonable price, I wouldn't be surprised to see the tax reduction applied to them as an incentive.

 

Nissan Leaf is coming out soon.... it's relatively "cheap" for a li-ion based hybrid so far.

 

is it $4.20 for a NON hybrid as well?

 

No, I believe the BoS voted for a modest increase (off the top of my head I seem to remember an increase of 10-28%) for NON-hybrids, but the hybrid tax increase SHOCKED me. In addition to the $2 per $100 for (FULL) electric vehicles.

 

I do not own a hybrid and my tax rate is $4.20 on the bill that just came (due May 5th).

 

Mine too. I was shocked to see how much I had to pay.

And speaking of people who don't register their cars from out of state. When we first moved up here from Texas six years ago, my husband was just on a three month "detail". We were supposed to go back after three months. We got a bill in the mail two months later for personal property. We were told, "if we drive on the roads, regardless if we are from out of state or not, we have to pay this tax". We assume someone turned us in, not knowing we weren't here to stay. Burned me up! This person had no clue who we were and what we were here for. But since I abide by the law, as soon as we found out my husband had a permanent job here, we registered our vehicle.

 

Not to mention, most hybrids are a bad financial decision. Rarely over a five year period will you recoup the premium paid.

Unless you plan to put 40k or more miles a year, you'll likely not recoup the outlay.

 

It's like people are willing to pay a premium to pollute less, go figure.

 

The annual car value tax is a pretty strange way to collect a very lage portion of the local tax revenue to begin with. Taxing a depreciating asset means that you either have to overstate its value or raise the tax rate or a bit of both to keep revenue even. And taxes based on consumer choice creates a rather large individual loophole (I could consume more than my fair share of local resources but pay ~zero tax by driving a 82 Chrysler Lebaron)

Is the current car tax "burden" still lower than the pre-Gilmore days?

One of the alternatives is to move to a local income tax... which would you prefer?

 

I like it because it taxes discretionary income.

 

Yes, significantly. Read the bill....it tells you how much of it you DON'T pay. Pre-Gilmore, you paid the full $4.20 assessment.
For my two cars, the current bill I got was $116.01. The actual amount due (at the $4.20 rate) is $276.20 for a savings of $160.19.

 

Last year the break was 66% off $4.20/$100 but this year it's 58%. I guess it will slowly work it's way down to 0%?

 

Here, Here, Cliff...yep we paid regular car taxes for many years before we got "the GIft" from Gilmore. now it's become a welcome releif for many.

We were happy for the last 10 years. Now we pay nothing for Kaosdad's 198? motorcylce, and about 28 bucks for one car and a tad more for the almost college grad...then it was time to buy me a new car and WHAM! boy I am glad that I save 400 a year of the $1040 I have to pay this year!

 

Just chiming into to say that my wife and I were driving around Ashburn last night and we agreed that we live in a beautiful area, so paying a little bit more is okay by us... especially when it doesn't necessarily affect us negatively. We originally came from central Massachusetts where instead of property tax there's excise tax, but it's based on the same principle (you pay a tax based your vehicle's assessed worth)... and the amount of the tax is similar. But the neighborhood and quality of life wasn't even close to the same.

Not trying to sound preachy or anything, just sharing another's bigger picture perspective.

 

I wouldn't mind paying so much if my elected officials (both with the BoS and School Board) would use the money they make from me in a more fiscally responsible way...

 

I believe that's because the $$ amount was capped. As the county grows and more cars are added, the % of the relief per car will continue to shrink.

 

What I'd like to know is how my 07' Odyssey went from being assessed at $20,325.00 last year to $22,925.00 this year. And no I didn't "pimp it out."