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Thursday, February 23, 2006

Fair-Market Values

Posted by on February 23 at 14:53 PM

When monorail bills first hit Seattle mailboxes, many residents were shocked to learn that the Seattle Monorail Project was placing much higher values on their cars than they were actually worth. (A ‘96 Accord with a Kelley Blue Book value of $7,000, for example, was evaluated by the SMP at nearly $10,000; a ‘99 Chrysler Concord with a Blue Book value of $9,000 was evaluated at nearly $16,000). These inflated values, determined by a “depreciation schedule” set by the state (and not, as many people assumed, by the monorail agency itself) led to inflated taxes - and angry taxpayers.

This year, two state senators - Democrat Mary Margaret Haugen and Republican Brad Benson - have proposed legislation that would dramatically change the way cars are valued, reducing new-car values to 85% of the Manufacturer’s Standard Retail Price (currently, the state assumes cars are worth their full MSRP the year they are bought, even though pretty much no one actually pays MSRP) and slashing values dramatically in subsequent years. For example, under the old schedule, a two-year-old car would be worth 89% of its original MSRP; under the new schedule, the same car would be worth just 67 percent of its (already-reduced) new-car value.

The bill may make car valuations more fair, but it could have major revenue implications for agencies (like the proposed Regional Transportation Investment District) that rely on car excise taxes for a large chunk of their funding. The changes would not apply to existing taxes, such as those levied by Sound Transit and the defunct monorail agency.


CommentsRSS icon

shocked to learn the SMP was placing what?

This really ought not to lower revenue, simply more in line with book value and typical vehicle depreciation. 'lower revenue' can be solved by raising the base MVET rate, whereas the book value issue could not since it was based on a skewed/troublesome depreciation schedule.

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