Tim Eyman: Let’s stick it to Sound Transit
Jul 11, 2017, 12:00 PM | Updated: 1:22 pm
Washington lawmakers had a chance to avoid the I-976 iceberg months ago. (File, MyNorthwest)
(File, MyNorthwest)
Initiative activist Tim Eyman unveiled a new initiative to bring back $30 car-tab fees on Tuesday.
He tells KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that it would strips away and repeals all taxes and fees over $30.
“Let’s stick it to Sound Transit, because Sound Transit lied to us,” he said.
Eyman says the initiative is a response to car-tab fees imposed by Sound Transit, who he says lied to voters to get ST3 passed. Eyman says the agency didn’t tell taxpayers about what he says is an unfair method used to inflate the cost of car tabs.
Sound Transit calculates the number based on the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of the vehicle, even though the Legislature passed a law that said tabs should be based on a vehicle’s actual value, considering its actual sale price and its depreciation.
Eyman has passed $30 license tab initiatives twice before. The courts have struck down portions of the measures once they’ve passed.
This time, Eyman says they’ve designed the initiative to survive a court challenge. It would force Sound Transit or any government entity to pay off any bonds that rely on inflated car tab fees.
He says everyone in the state will get to vote on this, as opposed to the taxpayers who approved ST3. Eyman’s group will have until the end of the year to get 260,000 signatures necessary to put the initiative on the November 2018 ballot.
If he succeeds, lawmakers can pass the measure or let it go to the voters for approval.
Listen to the entire interview with Eyman here.
