Sound Transit Car Tab Mendacity

Seattle residents should welcome the Seattle Times 1/15/22 headline “SPD: No more stops for expired car tabs.”   The “car tab” issue is another example of Sound Transit mendacity and incompetence. This mendacity began with a Sound Transit 7/8/2016 post entitled: “ST3 plan would cost typical adult $169 annually or $14 per month”. 

Here’s how much a typical adult would pay if ST3 is approved: 

MVET 

An adult owning the median value motor vehicle would pay an additional $43 per year in MVET if ST3 were passed. The updated calculation reflects an annual median value $5,333 of vehicles in the Sound Transit District. MVET taxes are determined by a state of Washington depreciation schedule for a specific vehicle’s model and production year. The previous calculation relied on a less representative average vehicle value of $10,135 for the more expansive tri-county area, for a significantly higher annual cost of $78 per adult.  

Yet Sound Transit's response to voter complaints was even more mendacity. An April 2017 Seattle Times article, “Sound Transit 3 car tab rollback threatens light rail to Everett”, included the following: 

During the campaign, Sound Transit was completely transparent about the taxes. We all knew that our car tabs would increase a lot in 2017 to help fund Sound Transit. So, when the first invoices arrived, the vast majority of people just paid their tabs. But a vocal minority, with big tabs from expensive cars, took their displeasure to Olympia, hoping that the Legislature would listen to their stories and disregard the will of the people. 

Sound Transit’s version of “the will of the people” ignores voters' approval of two initiatives to end car tabs. Sound Transit managed to continue the car tabs by claiming they had already issued bonds based on the fees and that the voters were misled by the initiatives.  

The result is I recently paid $310 for MVT for the car tab renewal for my 2016 Subaru Forrester. That fee for the 1.1% MVT charge says the 6-year-old car is worth $28,181.82. The Kelly Blue Book says it is worth $17,000.  

More Sound Transit mendacity.