At its regularly scheduled meeting Monday night, the Scott County Commission discussed the passage of a motor vehicle privilege tax; otherwise known as a wheel tax. Prior to a spirited public comment session, Scott County Mayor Jeff Tibbals made known that the state statute allowing county’s to enact a wheel tax didn’t specifically allow for nor prohibit some of the planned exemptions to the proposed wheel tax, as it had been presented at the Commission’s work session two weeks ago. As preferred by Tibbals, the wheel tax would be set at $30 per vehicle and $15 per motorcycle, with exemptions for commercial and antique vehicles, as well as vehicles for veterans who have a 100% service-related disability and former prisoners of war. However, the existing state statute only provides exemptions for veterans with service-related disabilities, former prisoners of war and select farm equipment.
Tibbals offered the Commission two options. “First, we could wait until we get an opinion from the Attorney General, or we could go ahead and pass a resolution that follows the statute,” Tibbals said. Commissioner Sam Lyles advocated going ahead with a vote on a resolution mirroring current State policies. “I am for the wheel tax. Where you get into trouble is with special interests, like commercial vehicles,” Lyles stated.
Tibbals noted his concern with raising taxes on business in this time of economic stress. “We don’t want to put more burden on business than they already have,” Tibbals said. Commissioner Ron Blevins, however, made the counterpoint that should a wheel tax not be implemented, the ensuing property tax increase would likely be more expensive to businesses than a wheel tax. “When you’re looking at a 15 percent increase (in property tax) that would make up for a number of vehicles in the business” Blevins stated.
Commissioner Paul Strunk was
hesitant to move forward so quickly. “We came into this meeting with one
expectation on the exemptions; then, at the last minute we changed direction. I
don’t think that’s necessarily fair to the citizens of
After discussion, Commissioner Willie Boyatt made a motion to empower Beaty, with the assistance of CTAS, to pen a formal request for an opinion from the office of the Attorney General regarding the legality of exemptions to a motor vehicle privilege tax that are not specifically allow for in state statute. Seconded by Commissioner Ernest Phillips, the motion passed on a 8-5 vote, with Commissioners Brian Armstrong, Blevins, Harold Chambers, Lyles, and Kenny Morrow casting dissenting votes.