Seen in the Courant:
In an abrupt change from her original plan, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced Friday that her proposal to eliminate the car tax would apply only to the first $30,000 of a car’s fair market value.
The revision came in response to criticism by Democrats that Rell’s plan would disproportionately favor the rich, who sometimes own numerous highly expensive cars. Her amended plan came less than one week after The Courant reported that residents of Greenwich own 2,337 cars that are worth more than $50,000 each. The town’s vehicle roster includes 39 Rolls-Royces, 40 Maseratis, 90 Bentleys, 94 Ferraris, 931 Porsches and 3,474 Mercedes-Benzes.
Why $30,000? Even though I have a nice income, I still find the idea of spending $30k on a vehicle wasteful unless there’s special need. Why not a lower cap, so that the lower-end or older vehicles driven by the huddled masses are exempted, while conspicuous consumption is taxed on those who can afford it?
I’d still prefer to see the towns given more flexibility in their taxing, be it differentiation among residential property, commercial property, and personal autos when it comes to setting mill rates to permitting towns to piggyback off other taxes in lieu of being limited to property taxes and state handouts for revenue.
