Hybrid Cars Costing Owners More

TUPELO, Miss.(WCBI) – Many Mississippians who own certain fuel efficient vehicles are learning that it is going to cost them.

Jody Brown of Tupelo owns a Toyota Prius. It is his second one and gets an average of 40 miles to the gallon. Like many Americans, Brown has been encouraged to save energy including gasoline.

“For years, our government both federal and state has been encouraging consumers when they buy a car to consider buying something environmentally friendly or at least more fuel efficient which a Prius is for example. That’s what we own,” said Brown.

If you own a hybrid vehicle like the one behind me or an all electric vehicle, you probably received this letter from the Mississippi Department of Revenue.

“Telling us that effective the 1st of October, which by that time had passed that effective the 1st of October, we would be getting fined. That’s the way I interpret it but being required to pay an extra fee because we own a hybrid vehicle,” said Brown.

State Senator Chad McMahan, of Guntown, defends the new tax.

“We have a $30 billion road system here in Mississippi. It’s conservative to find ways to take care of your property to find ways to take care of the road system. No one would build a house and never put any money towards maintenance. The same thing is true for roads and bridges. We have to find funding mechanisms to take care of roads and bridges and spread that tax or that mechanism as broadly as we can so that everyone is able to support roads and bridges,” said McMahan.

“I’m perfectly okay with keeping the roads updated and the bridges improved or repaired. But to single out owners of hybrid or electric vehicles I thought was pretty unfair. For whatever a reason a person buys that car now they’ve decided that we’re going to tax that consumer because they wanted to be more environmentally friendly or because they wanted to be more fuel efficient in the car. Now we’re going to make them pay extra for doing what the government kind of doing what the government kind of informed us would be a good thing to do,” said Brown.

McMahan says ultimately the gas tax for road and bridges may be a thing of the past.

“We going to a shift away from petroleum fuels to electric vehicles. And you know industry experts say in 25 years there may not be any gasoline engines made in the United States or sold to the mass public so we’re still going to have a road and bridge program that we’re going to have to support so we’re looking at ways to fund that,”said McMahan.

For now, Brown and other hybrid owners are going to have to pay an extra $75 a year.

If you own a completely electric car, you have to pay $150 a year tax.

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