Virginia Transportation Funding Deal

Hey learned something new...

Today I registered my minivan for 2-yrs in advance to save the fee increases due July-1. In NOVA we have emission test every 2 years...MassP - do you have emission testing or is that just NOVA? (2006 Prius is exempt in NOVA)

Anyhow, here's the new thing: DMVnow.com website says that EV's (electric vehicles) in Virginia always owed extra $50/yr registration fee. So that implies the new $64/yr "Prius" tax or "Hybrid" fee was pretty much targeted directly at hybrids, since EV were already paying $50/yr. I am reading this right?

 

VA status check
...here we are August 2013 in Virginia, new transportation funding bill in effect, or is it?

As of July 1:

>>Sales tax went up from 5 to 6% in north Virginia. This happened, CHECK! OUCH!!!

>>State gasoline taxes went down ~6 cents/gallon. Controversial - not noticeable so far.
Gasoline stations as not required to show tax on their receipts here so it is "impossible" to know if the tax reduction is being passed down to consumers. However, it looks like the stations are still charging full state taxes at 17.5 cents 2% local in NOVA. The new gaso tax is 3.5% on the wholesale dealer (11 cents). Looks to me like the the dealers are still taking the full old tax...I don't know if the wholesalers are also taking 3.5%. Gov. McDonnell spoke to this on "Ask the Governor" his response was it may take time to work through the system and the wholesalers have to be willing to pass along the savings to the consumer. But this is nutty, I say: aren't the consumers allowed to know what portion of the gasoline bill is tax at a gas station? Apparently not here in VA. I sent a note to my elected officials.

>>Hybrid fees $64/yr should be in effect: but can anyone confirm being charged for this? If not yet implemented adminsitratively, perhaps there is a window of opprtunity to register ahead without the new fees.

Please advise if anyone has got hit with the new $64/yr hybrid fee yet!

 

I'm with you it's highway robbery but not enough people take the time to worry about it, so here we are. You would have paid the $64 at the registration I think, but if you registered before July 1 you beat the fee. Except you had an opportunity before July 1 to regsister for 3 yrs in advance to beat the fee for 3 yrs, which is what I did. Some people are asking me if its too late to regsiter on-line without the fee, it think is too late, but I do not have confirmation the fee has been implemented.

 

From a discount credit card I have I can estimate taxes each fill-up. I can see the tax did not go down in July on my credit card statement.

VA is shifting from 17.5 cents at the pump, to 3.5% at the wholesale rack level (~11 cents). Presumably the gaso station should be charging me 17.5 less cents tax per gallon at the pump, but their wholesale price would have gone up 11 cents.

One of the (many) critiques about VA plan to lower gaso tax is that experts felt the stations would just hold constant price and take a higher margin on it.

 

Bob- Thanks for the GasBuddy data. I checked my gaso receipts, at least for VA NJ PA MD, it appears no one requires gaso stations to say anything on the receipt except total cost...no taxes shown. No accountability.

 

ON the emissions you may be correct 2 yrs for some models...somehow my 2006 is exempted, perhaps it is a CARB certified. So I never need emissions test and can register 3 yrs advance. I may need emission test after 10 years or something. I am already registered thru 2016 with no emissions test ever. Mini-incentive!

I have sent a complaint about high gaso prices in NoVA to a couple elected officials. I do not actually object to the cost: I object to not being told what the cost includes, and why?

But I am starting to learn the answers:
(1) First of all, we have 2% extra tax in NoVA or about +6-cents...this is not new. So until recently our tax at the pump was approx. 18.5 Fed + 17.5 State + 6 Local NoVA whereas now should be approx. 18.5 Fed + 11 State + 6 Local NoVA.

(2) We probably have EPA Reformulated Gasoline in NoVA which probably costs +20 cents per gallon more. So you can probably thank EPA for part of the higher cost in NoVA.

Cars are so clean today I question if EPA reformulated gaso really makes a difference in air quality. It used to be that mandating Reformulated Gasoline on a region was the way EPA forced 10% ethanol. But today almost all gasoline has 10% ethanol.

The other thing I noticed on GasBuddy, in the cheaper gaso areas of VA, there are very few if any majors selling their "TopTier.com" brands with supposedly better additive packages. So we pay more in NoVA but we possibly get something better? Not sure. But to be honest I never pay full price...from Giant foods I usually get ~50 cents off per gallon at Shell and I have some other discounts when my Giant account is empty. So possibly we are not so bad off. But I still feel if we as consumers if we press our elected officials to bird-dog prices for us, we can get the price down.

 

...the other reason I heard: many years ago oil companies would advertize the price of gasoline without taxes. this was considered false advertizing (even though the ads had tax shown in smaller numerals - think Joe Izuzu) Therefore a commerce law was passed saying gasoline stations are not allowed to talk about pre-tax prices.

Now, however, I want oil companies to talk to us about pre-tax prices. That's what I want to hear about.

NO WAY ( to my knowledge)!! The world as I know is northern VA and gasoline prices are higher here than MD and NJ and probably par with DC. I have no explanation why north VA would be higher, since we have lower taxes, except to say we must have higher profit margins taken here, possibly we have less favorable delivery cost compared to NJ.

What you said above, they said on WTOP radio last night, that everyone heading to VA for gaso due to gaso tax reduction, and I tweeted them the story is not true AFAIK...story is off air today. Outside of north VA, VA gaso price is among cheapest in nation but nothing new there. The thing we are trying to measure if the gaso tax reduction lowered the pump price, and I think not in north VA.

 

...hello there Oakton alum, yes that explains a little bit: NoVA Is +6 cents local gaso tax (2%). But I'm looking at like center city Baltimore way cheaper than NoVA (a few months back) and they have higher gaso taxes AFAIK.