Oklahoma Supreme Court Finds Electric Car Fee Unconstitutional

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GRA

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Via IEVS: https://insideevs.com/oklahoma-supreme-court-electric-car-fee-unconstitutional/

Though lawmakers provided justification for a new hybrid and electric car fee, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rules it unconstitutional.
The fee was a last minute addition by Oklahoma legislators that would have charged $100 per year per electric car and $30 per year for hybrids. The court compared it to another tax on cigarettes, which it also deemed unconstitutional. However, there’s a significant difference between the two would-be fees. The cigarette taxed aimed to fuel the state with about $215 million toward its annual budget, whereas the electric car tax may have only amounted to about $500,000. . . .

The final ruling was 6-3 in favor of eliminating the electric car fee. It was found to be unconstitutional since it made no attempt to change or create regulations, but rather only to raise revenue. Justice Joseph Watt explained:

[House Bill 1449] “clearly levies a tax in the strict sense of the word and the incurred revenue from it is not incidental to its purpose.”

Further, in order to raise taxes, a certain set of rigorous criteria must be met. Then, the bill must receive a three-fourths majority vote. Bills also must be adopted at least a week before session ends. The Sierra Club filed the lawsuit pertaining to this bill, stating that due process was not followed.
 
There's going to be more of this as states struggle to find a uniform taxation solution for what what is becoming a non-uniform fleet. The link between gasoline consumption and infrastructure demand was tenuous (and rather regressive) to begin with, but EVs break it. It's hard to justify a flat rate for one group of drivers and a consumption tax for another.
 
It's clear that what's needed to be equitable are two separate fees, one for (axle) weight, and one for pollution. In the case of Oklahoma, the court threw out the EV fee on procedural grounds, not because there was anything wrong with one per se.
 
rawhog said:
California next.
And, hopefully, VA. What I don't know is whether VA's constitution has something that would preclude such a tax.

I told a politician that I thought it was pretty ridiculous to slap this tax only on cars which run on fuel created within the state and thus to prefer vehicles which run on fuel which comes from other states and other countries.
 
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