February 5, 2008
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Car Rental Excise Taxes
Paying the price: Tax complicates using car-sharing services
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 05, 2008
When Jason Maupin, 24, returned to Pittsburgh last year after a student externship in Hershey, Dauphin County, he decided to make a lifestyle change.
He sold his car.
"I realized the expense it would be to have a car," he said. And he also saw "an opportunity to be a little more environmentally conscious and healthy."
Living at Allegheny Center meant that he could walk to classes at the main campus of Community College of Allegheny County, and to his job at a Downtown coffee shop.
For those occasions when driving was the only feasible option, he joined Flexcar, the Seattle-based car-sharing service that began operations in Pittsburgh in May, and merged with Cambridge, Mass.-based Zipcar in November.
By December, he was encouraging his friends to join. In January, he stopped, having second thoughts about his own membership.
The reason? A new county tax that went into effect Jan. 1, alongside the drink tax. The car rental excise tax, passed by County Council in an 11-4 vote, is $2 per day, "or any part of a day," for every car rented in Allegheny County.
Car rental excise taxes are nothing new. Customers have paid an additional $2 a day for rentals in Pennsylvania since 1991, for the state Public Transportation Assistance Fund.
