Your Toyota have a Sudden Acceleration Problem? House Democrats Solution is a $108 Million Tax Increase

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Washington Examiner:

Your Toyota have a sudden acceleration problem? House Democrats solution is a $108 million tax increase
By: MARK TAPSCOTT
Editorial Page Editor
05/27/10 6:20 PM EDT

Members of the House will soon vote on the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 2010, which is essentially the response by the House Democratic leadership to the Toyota sudden acceleration scandal.

The measure includes a $9 per car tax to fund a lengthy list of actions to be taken by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to make sure your car doesn't suddenly accelerate without your permision in the future. The tax will be disguised as a "Vehicle Safety Fund" fee to be collected by the manufacturers.

That means it will be actually be collected as part of the sales price at the time of purchase by the dealer, then passed on to the manufacturer which will then ship it to the U.S. Treasury on a quaterly basis, thus illustrating that there is really no such thing as a tax on corporations because corporations simply function as tax collectors from consumers for government.

As The Auto Prophet points out, in a market expected to sell at least 12 million new vehicles next year, the $9 per sale fee will generate approximately $108 million in new revenue for NHTSA in the third year following its introduction. The will be $3 per sale in the first year and $6 per sale in the second year.

Only in Washington would the solution to sudden acceleration be a $9 tax hike. By the way, the bill also includes a provision authorizing the Secretary of Transportation under whom NHTSA labors to increase the tax with nothing more than a notice in the Federal Register.

But wait, there's more, a lot more. The bill is chock full of additional regulations and red tape for automakers, and The Auto Prophet has both a link to the bill text on THOMAS and his annotated comments section-by-section on the most important provisions.