Wednesday, March 16, 2022

A New Tax With A Loophole?

 When it comes to separating taxpayers from their money, governments are the acknowledged experts. The Colo state government is/has put forth a $29 "use fee" on your license plate, to supplement the $25 "fee" to have your car smog sniffed annually. The $29 fee will reward you with a parks pass which will allow you to use the parks system for "free".

The Colorado Sun is reporting that there may be a loophole in the new law:

Colorado’s Parks and Wildlife Commission on Wednesday approved a $29 price for the new Keep Colorado Wild Pass. The pass, which will be part of every vehicle registration in the state unless drivers choose to opt out, could generate more than $54 million a year for Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s 43 state parks.

Bold text mine. I imagine that the legislature found the big increase* in vehicle registration costs to be so distasteful to the peasantry that some way out had to be provided to keep the lawmakers from the lamp posts. 

*YMMV. My cars run about $70/year and get smog sniffed every 2 years for $25/each so the "free" parks pass represents about a 30% increase in registration costs. 

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