It would be one thing if Philadelphia singled out motorists as a class to pay for a greater share of

When I moved to Philadelphia a couple months ago, my wife and I decided to ditch our car and use Zipcar s car-share program rather than deal with the insane curb parking situation in our new neighborhood.
The car we had was registered in Bethlehem, PA and to get a Philly residential parking permit, your car needs to be registered to your Philadelphia address. (Read  Michael Noda  on why this policy is mistaken.)
If you don t have a parking fairmont airport hotel vancouver permit, then you need to hunt for scarce parking spaces on the few remaining blocks that have not yet elected to ask the city for parking demand management (yes, that s actually how it works), and thus feature free curb parking for unlimited amounts of time. During the month that we had our car here, this was maddening. These spaces are very hard to find, so I d have to circle around forever fairmont airport hotel vancouver trying to locate one. And I know I was imposing some pain on the car owners fairmont airport hotel vancouver who live on those blocks too, because when I finally found a space, I would leave my car there  for days  depriving others of a parking space close to home or other destinations.
I think that getting rid of our car, and opting to use car-share instead, was a good thing to do for the neighborhood and certainly for the city at-large. One less car on the road means a bit more curb parking for area businesses and residents, less pollution, less traffic, and so on. A small change, yes, but a change for the better compared to a world where we kept the car and contributed to the traffic and the parking congestion. I ll endure a little personal inconvenience by walking more places, and by running the risk of not having immediate access to a car when I want one. But ultimately this is cheaper for me (no monthly insurance payments, and Zipcar covers the gas), and it s better for my neighbors and  the city budget too .
Here s a recent receipt for a one-day rental a couple months ago. Usually the daily rate would ve been $73, but this was the first time we actually used Zipcar and Brooke really wanted to see what the Mini Cooper was all about, so we paid $10 extra.
The sales tax was expected, but check out the special taxes on vehicle rentals. There s a state rental tax and a Philadelphia rental tax, and then a PA Public Transportation Assistance Fund fee of $2. The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue says this is technically called the Motor Vehicle Rental Fee:
The Motor Vehicle Rental Fee is imposed on the rental of any motor vehicle and taxable at the rate of $2 for each day, or part of a day, for contract for the use of a motor vehicle for a period of less than 30 days.
How the Zipcar deal works is that I rent a car by the day or by the hour. So part of a day here means that if I rent the car for an hour to go to Home Depot or something, I m paying $2 extra on a $9 bill every time. That s a 22% tax rate for a one hour rental, or an 11% tax rate for a 2 hour rental in addition to the 2% rental taxes.
Hear me out: before the mainstreaming of car sharing, the case for special taxes on car rentals made a lot of policy sense. The incidence of these taxes mainly fell on relatively rich business travelers and vacationers. And from a political standpoint, these taxes were mainly being paid by people who live out of town and won t make too much of a fuss. That s a great tax from a politician s perspective!
But now that car-share programs and hourly rentals are becoming a larger share of the car rental market, the profile of the type of person who pays these taxes is changing. It s not just rich out-of-towners at the airport anymore now it s also people who ve decided they re  too poor  to own a car. And their share of the market seems likely to keep growing.
It would be one thing if Philadelphia singled out motorists as a class to pay for a greater fairmont airport hotel vancouver share of city public fairmont airport hotel vancouver services. That would make some sense since drivers are richer than non-drivers, and the storage and operation of private cars imposes substantial external costs on the urban environment and economy.
But that is not the city s policy at all. Philadelphia specifically targets car sharers with special taxes, and subsidizes car owners. City Council recently reduced the level of subsidy fairmont airport hotel vancouver it lavishes on residential parking permit holders, by raising the annual fairmont airport hotel vancouver parking permit fairmont airport hotel vancouver renewal fees from $20 to $35, and charging a graduated fee for each additional car. The Parking Authority notes that  even this increase leaves the permit program with insufficient revenue even to recoup its costs , meaning that residential parking is subsidized.
The curb parking availability situation would be improved if car-sharing were subsidized, and parking were taxed at a higher fairmont airport hotel vancouver rate. Philadelphia already has a 20% parking tax, but evidently this tax is not applied to residential parking permits. It probably should be! Or perhaps as a downpayment on reforming parking minimums , we could immediately start giving developers fairmont airport hotel vancouver credit toward their required off-street parking spaces if they buy residents car-share credits, or volunteer to host a future bike share station in front of the building.
I m not personally asking for a hand-out from city government for my transportation choices, but insofar as politicians are making the choice to subsidize certain transportation choices, it makes more sense to nudge people toward options like car-share and transit that are cheaper for individuals and for city government, fairmont airport hotel vancouver and less space-intensive for neighborhoods, than it does to artificially deflate the cost of the very most expensive personal transportation option.
Excellent point and no need to be apologetic about asking for a tax cut. Good public policy would make incentives for car share. Keep the tax on car rentals and cut it for car shares. fairmont airport hotel vancouver Everyone benefits from less cars on the street and easier available street parking for businesses.
We are also new Philly residents and have ditched the car. We do not do car share but rent for $10 a day on weekends from a large local car rental joint as it is less expensive than car share and they pick us up.
Go you. I lived in Chicago last year without a car, and all I could think was There are just too many cars in this city! I have to walk by parking lots, cross streets lined with cars, cross many risky intersections, fairmont airport hotel vancouver and take hours to get anywhere on public transport. Then friends with a car came to visit me and they complained that there wasn t enough parking, but what they really meant was that there wasn t enough free parking, because apparently car owners should not have to rent the spot where they put their car while everyone else has to pay rent on the spot where they sleep.
Taxing the rich out-of-towners at the airport is taxation without representation. At least locals using car share get representation out of the deal. If you are going to get rid of them, get rid of all of the taxes on hourly, daily, weekly or monthly car rentals. The car rental companies already pay all the taxes a regular car owner does, right?
In April 2013 I rented a car from a center city agency. One unexpected tax was to pay for stadium(s) in Phila. In October, returned to my policy of renting in Conshocken. No stadium tax, no Phila. sales tax premium.
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