Published: September 29, 2008 04:18 pm         

GUEST COLUMN: An excise tax on vehicles could be education's answer

As a Cumberland County resident for 10 years, education funding has always been an issue. Overall, the Board of Education has sincerely tried to come up with a budget that the taxpayers could afford. The county commissioners have truly tried their best to keep Cumberland County taxes low.

I think it is important for the reader to know my brief background in order to understand my solution to this complex tax problem. My career was in personal financial services and management, however, when I came to Cumberland County, I did substitute teaching at CCHS, later worked in the Head Start program and for two nonprofit housing companies. With these experiences in mind, it is important to understand that low- to moderate-income families will participate to the best of their abilities in their children's education and well being.

By taxing only those who own real estate properties for education purposes does not give those families who do not own property the opportunity to contribute even though they may have children in the school system and would want to. The sales tax for this county is already high enough and shouldn't be considered as an education source. The wheel tax was a blanket tax for everyone, but would have had a negative effect on the low to moderate-income family.

This brings me to the most equitable tax solution for all concerned, but some research needs to be conducted. An excise tax on vehicles is a very simple solution. Here is how it would work. We have already established that it could be an undue hardship on the very low-, low- and moderate-income family to pay the full tax, so a "deductible" for each vehicle registered here in Cumberland County would have to be established. Generally speaking, most very low-, low- and moderate-income families own vehicles that are not valued as high as those people with higher income levels. So the vehicle excise tax could have a $2,500 deductible before any tax would be collected and then that tax could be on a graduated scale upward. For example: a person driving a vehicle valued at $3,500 would only pay tax on $1,000 and the scale of tax would be, as an example, $15. However, someone driving a vehicle valued at $25,000 would have the $2,500 deductible and pay a tax on $22,500, or $50, which would be the maximum tax to be paid. So vehicles valued at $25,000 or higher would all pay the maximum tax of $50. These numbers and percentages obviously are not written in stone, but I think the concept of how this would work has merit. With fuel costs skyrocketing and the youth population growing, this community needs to come up with an additional revenue source that is innovative, equitable, and ongoing for everyone.

To me, this solution gives everyone, from very low, to low to moderate and higher income families, the opportunity to contribute to the education of our students, not just the property owners. It benefits the county commissioners because they are not raising property taxes. It benefits the school system because it gives them exclusively, the additional revenue needed to keep the programs they have in place.

I ask the Board of Education and the County Commissioners to consider this solution carefully. Other communities in other parts of the country are using this concept.