Motorcycle, SUV tax break illustrate legislative duplicity

LAST MONTH, THE House urged local governments to raise property tax rates on homes and businesses.

Representatives won’t admit that they did that, of course. And it’s quite possible that some of them are so blind to the effects of their votes — even when those effects are printed in black in white in front of them — that they don’t even realize it. But that is precisely what they did when they passed a bill that there would have been no justification for passing even if it weren’t so obvious that it would lead to higher tax rates.

Ask most representatives, and they’ll tell you they voted to lower property taxes on motorcycles and on F150 Super Cabs, F250s, Ford Excursions and some of the other super-heavy trucks and SUVs that no longer meet the state’s passenger truck definition. Currently, most automobiles are taxed based on 6 percent of their assessed value; but trucks that weigh more than 7,000 pounds and all motorcycles are taxed based on 10.5 percent of their value. The bill the House approved without any recorded objections would extend the lower tax rate to motorcycles and to trucks that weigh between 7,000 and 9,000 pounds — pretty much every “passenger” vehicle on the roads except the big Hummer and a couple of others.

The state Board of Economic Advisors projected that the bill would give a $6 million tax break to the owners of motorcycles and big trucks and SUVs. But by the BEA’s way of thinking, this tax cut wouldn’t actually reduce tax collections by cities, counties and schools, because “local governments are expected to adjust their millages to make up for the lower assessed values in order to keep revenue growth at its historical rate.”

Translation: Cities and counties will raise the taxes on homeowners and rental property and businesses, as well as all other automobiles, in order to pay for these two special tax cuts.

Of course, the people who passed this bill without questioning that assumption are the same people who have spent the past year bashing cities and counties for raising property taxes — and passing legislation to prevent cities and counties from raising taxes as the BEA believes they will do.

Lawmakers will argue that the idea of local governments raising the tax rate to cover their loss was simply an economist’s theory, and not one they endorsed. But if that’s the case, it means they deliberately passed the bill under false pretenses. If they expect locals simply to take the hit, then they need to at least be honest enough to admit that they are, once again, stripping money out of city, county and school budgets.

This bill wouldn’t make any sense even if it didn’t shrink the property tax base. The tax preference the state gives to regular-sized passenger vehicles serves an important state interest of promoting safety: Motorcycles are more dangerous to their occupants, and giant trucks and SUVs are more dangerous to both their occupants and the occupants of other vehicles.

Despite all the talk about tax-happy lawmakers, the truth is that one of the favorite hobbies of the Legislature is to keep chipping away at the tax base — particularly the tax base of local governments — by granting one little tax break after another.

It’s time for that to stop. The Senate should reject this latest attempt to nibble away at the property tax base, and instead return to some senators’ efforts to come up with a coherent overall tax system for state and local governments.