A few Lucky Virginians Have Another Nasty Surprise In Store -- Compliments Of The Legislature

After the public outcry over the last 4 months related to the "Abusive Driver's fees" it's fascinating that another provision in the very same transportation funding bill (House Bill 3202) has not come under more public scrutiny.

Starting January 1, 2008, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) and the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority (HRTA) will begin taxing all sorts of activities in the Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads areas. These taxes will be imposed on residents in the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas, and Manassas Park, Norfolk, Newport News, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Williamsburg and Poquoson and the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, Isle of Wight, York and James City.

Here are the new taxes and fees (.doc), all of which are in addition to any existing tax on these activities:

• 2% tax on all motor vehicle rentals
• 5% tax on all automotive repairs, including things like oil changes
• $10 fee for your annual vehicle registration
• 1% (of the purchase price) additional fee for your initial vehicle registration
• $10 additional fee for motor vehicle inspection
• 2% additional hotel tax
• A $0.40/$100 of valuation sales tax on all real property sales (this is an tax increase of 500% from the current tax of $1/$1000 of value. No doubt this will help the ailing housing market)

The money will go into a State Treasurer fund (Special Sales and Use Tax Motor Vehicle Repair Fund) and will be doled out to the NVTA or HRTA as 'appropriate'. What does appropriate mean exactly? Well neither Authority is required to follow Virginia procurement guidelines and is free to issue “no-bid” contracts to whomever they wish. I'm sure it will be frequently 'appropriate'.

The Authorities were also given the ability to issue bonds and to obligate your future taxes to the payments on those bonds. And all of this power, in a pseudo public body that is run by appointees. That’s right, the NVTA and the HRTA members are not elected by the public, so you are being taxed without representation.

The only ray of hope in this is that Loudoun County and attorney Robert G. Marshall were just granted a joint appeal by the Virginia Supreme Court in their cases against the NVTA. Hopefully, the VASC will put a halt to this bureaucracy run amok.