Virginia Ping! If you want on or off the Virginia Ping List, please freepmail me.
Posted on 02/22/2013 12:53:51 PM PST by Perdogg
Virginia's House of Delegates has voted to approve what would become the first major reform in a generation of the state's system for financing its highway network.
Friday's vote was 60-40.
(Excerpt) Read more at wmal.com ...
ping
Sales tax goes up 6%.....now on to the VA Senate.
Call your VA Senator and tell them NO on the sales tax hike in HB2313.....this vote will occur TODAY.
Virginia Ping! If you want on or off the Virginia Ping List, please freepmail me.
And I’m sure the extra loot - er, funds will be put in a “lock box” to be used exclusively for transportation, and not as a slush fund for politicians - less “administrative” costs, of course...
Goes up to 5.3%
The personal property tax will increase from 3.5% to 4.3%.
The tax on vending machine sales rises from 4.5% to 6% in NOVA and Hampton Roads and 5.3% elsewhere in the state.
Heavy equipment used for contracts on road construction, railroads, docks, etc. will be taxed at 4.3%, up from 3.5%
Except for the increased tax on motor vehicles, other tangible personal property will be taxed at 5%.
In Northern Virginia, commercial, industrial and residential land and building sales will have an additional tax of 25 cents per $100 of value. (A Conferee had previously told me the tax was 40 cents per $100)
In Northern Virginia there will be a 3 % hotel tax (Legislators were previously informed this amount was 2%)
While the bill shifts the 17.5 cent flat tax per gallon of gas to a 3.5% sales tax on the wholesale price of gasoline, it is speculative to claim that motorists will pay less for gas because the sales tax will be computed on the wholesale price of gas as of February 20, 2013 and will not go below this floor.
The sales tax on purchasing vehicles (trucks and cars) increases from the current 3% to 4% on July 1, 2013, 4.1% on July 1, 2014; 4.2 % on July 1, 2015, and 4.3% on July 1, 2016. (Legislators were told it was a straight 4% tax. In reality, the tax increases each year through 2016.)
If Congress does not pass the internet sales tax collection law, the tax on wholesale gasoline beginning January 1, 2015 will increase from 3.5% to 5.1%.(regular gas) and 6% (diesel). There is no provision in the law to revert back to 3.5% should Congress pass the internet tax law after 2015.
By the way, if Congress passes the internet tax, mom and pop internet stores will be forced to comply with thousands of jurisdictions’ differing tax rates. Big online companies can easily comply but their smaller competitors could be forced out of business.
To reiterate, here are the other changes I mentioned yesterday:
Replace the current 17.5 cents per gallon flat tax on gasoline with a 3.5 % wholesale sales tax paid by distributors, which will be passed on to consumers, and a 6 % wholesale sales tax on diesel fuel.
Increase the 5% retail sales and use tax paid statewide on most purchases to 6% in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads and 5.3 % in the rest of the state.
Apply a $100 annual fee on alternative fuel vehicles, including hybrids.
Increase the amount of general fund money diverted to fund transportation from .50 % to .675 %, raising roughly $200 million when fully phased in.
If Congress passes the Marketplace Equity Act (which requires on line businesses to collect sales taxes) the proceeds will be distributed as follows: 55.55% for schools; 22.2% for local governments with no restrictions; and 22.2% for roads and transit. If Congress does not pass the Internet sales tax collections act, an additional 1.6 % tax would be added to the wholesale gas tax to achieve the same end.
When the Republicans become "Democrats lite," it is over. Who wants to vote for a "Democrat lite" when he or she can vote for a genuine Democrat?
I stopped donating money to the Republican Party the last legislative session when the Republicans raised taxes. No one knows or understands fiscal responsibility; too complex and difficult I guess. The Republicans used to care, but now they are tax and spend Republicans! ...maybe not to the same degree as Democrats, but they are in the same pew. Not much of a choice...
I know. You work your ass off to get good conservatives in all branches of government. And then they do this crap. And you can’t write the governor to stop it, because it was his idea. And the house just passed it, and they had the super-majority of republicans. The Senate loves this, because it’s mostly democrats and moderates, and Bill Bolling would break a tie but there won’t be one.
They are so drunk on the “lets fix transportation”. The republicans for some reason think that’s the important thing, and the democrats are wondering how God favored them with idiots for opposition.
Sold out. Brokenhearted. Again.
The Democrats raise taxes in order to fix things; the Republicans copy them. I suppose the justification is that taxes have not been raised for a long, long time, so it is okay to raise them again. After all, "everybody is doing it!"
Perhaps they should look to Canada for examples and advice of how to carry out fiscal responsibility. See http://www.pierremp.ca/budget/
The rest of VA pays for the roads in Northern VA that are in basically in only 3 counties.
Northern virginia gets less back from the state than they pay in taxes. By a lot.
Northern Virginia is underrepresented on the transportation board that decides projects, because that board is based on districting from decades ago. And since NoVa isn’t a majority, the majority won’t change it.
And when NoVa complains that they aren’t getting enough, the answer from the majority is to “let” NoVa raise THEIR taxes even more, on a false promise that the extra money will stay in NoVa. But there are no guarantees — when NoVa gets to keep a share of the “extra” money, the state will just cut the money they get from the overall collection to “compensate”.
It is so bad in our area that the counties actually fund their own road projects, something none of the rural counties have to do. So we were already taxing ourselves to build our roads.
We also get less of the education money, because that is distributed based on need, and since we DO have richer people, we have higher property taxes and so we need less of the money from things like the lottery, even though a plurality of the lottery money comes from our area.
If NoVa was returned the same percentage of money as we send to the state in taxes, there wouldn’t be a road problem.
Of course, it doesn’t help that we got sucked into a “regional transportation board” that takes loads of money and throws it away on mass transit. Something rural counties don’t have to worry about. Nobody is going to force Roanoke to take their tax dollars and waste it on a metro system.
You may not be aware that I-95 is going to have toll booths at Fredericksburg and at the NC line to fund projects in NoVa. No toll booths north of Fredericksburg -odd that.
A fredericksburg toll makes little sense, unless it would be used to pay to widen the bridge and surrounding area. That section of I-95 blocks up every day.
I drive quite often between Northern Virginia and Doswell; and I-95 is pretty much a mess from washington down to about mile marker 143, and then it blocks up again between 133 and 126 (the bridge and then through fredericksburg).
My daughter goes to VCU, and I used to worry about getting caught in rush hour there. But I found that their rush hour is nothing, compared to what we experience on I-95 between 2pm and 6pm.
In fact, if I am heading south on I-95, if I don’t get out by 2:30pm, I just head out 28 to 17; it’s longer, but takes less time.
Putting tolls on state borders is a time-honored tradition to collect money from out-of-staters. Yes, it also gets people who live in this state and work elsewhere.
They can’t put a toll at the maryland side, because I-95 doesn’t really cross the border, you get onto the beltway, and you can’t toll the beltway.
Frankly, if it was just commuters, I wouldn’t care about the problems in NoVa. People choose where to live and work.
But there are periods of time each day where it is pretty much impossible to get from one place to another around here. And while some of the issue is our own fault, we have been short-changed.
In fact, the reason they are having to do tolls to get money for us is that nobody will give up the existing funds.
Here is a waste. They are tearing up the median area to extend the HOV from mile marker 152 to about 140. This is a waste because unless the HOV go all the way to Fredericksburg (mile marker 126 )the just moved the traffic jam south, not solved it.
Granted, I don’t touch I-95 after 4pm, but 143 is about where the backup ends. If I were going to do more widening, I would skip 143-133, and start again at the I-17 junction, across the bridge.
The bridge is problematic because there are only two crossings anywhere near that location for the river, and the other is the 4-lane route 1, which gets really backed up at the river as well.
I’d extend down to 126 at that point, because it is true that through fredericksburg, there are always backups going both ways, almost all the time during the day.
Looks like they have done it. Some details missing, but here is one report:http://www.wtop.com/120/3232280/Va-Senate-passes-880-million-highway-reform
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