Republican lawmakers are pushing for Maine to eliminate the state’s vehicle excise tax and replace it with an annual mileage-based fee.
Drivers in Maine currently have to pay an annual excise tax on their vehicles, the amount of which is calculated based on a vehicle’s age and manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP).
LD 1194 — sponsored by Sen. Joseph Martin (R-Oxford) and cosponsored by Rep. James E. Thorne (R-Carmel) — would phase this tax out over the next five years, reducing it by 20 percent each year. In its place, the state would begin collecting a mileage-based fee every year, beginning on July 1, 2027.
Mileage amounts would either be self-reported by vehicle owners using a digital system or by mechanics during the annual routine vehicle safety inspection.
Most drivers would be charged at a rate of one cent per mile driven. According to Kelley Blue Book, most vehicles are driven an average of about 14,500 miles each year, meaning that many Mainers would likely pay around $145 each year.
The first 10,000 miles driven every year would be exempt from this tax for those who are over the age and 65, as well as for those who reside in a household with an annual income of less than $40,000.
Electric and hybrid vehicles would be required to pay a flat annual fee “equivalent to the average usage-based infrastructure fee for a motor vehicle.”
As part of the strategy for phasing out the state’s excise tax, new cars sold after July 1, 2025 would be exempt from excise tax outright. For everyone else, excise taxes would be entirely eliminated by July 1, 2029.
The revenue from the mileage-based fees would be deposited in a newly-created Maine Transportation Fund, at which point they would be distributed to municipalities as appropriate, as well as into the Highway Fund.
The Maine Transportation Fund would also be responsible for “maintaining and repairing roads, [as well as] maintaining and repairing bridges and funding transportation infrastructure projects.”
By January 1, 2026, the Department of Transportation (DoT) would be required to submit a report to the Transportation Committee detailing their plan for implementing the mileage-based fee outlined in the bill.
A report on the “compliance, effectiveness and equity of the usage-based infrastructure fee” would need to be submitted to the Committee by January 1, 2035.
Sen. Martins’ bill currently contains an emergency preamble, meaning that if it wins the support from at least two-thirds of lawmakers in both the House and Senate eventually vote in favor of it, the law would go into effect immediately.
Click Here for More Information on LD 1194
Other lawmakers this session have introduced legislation that takes aim at Maine’s annual vehicle safety inspections.
Under a bill introduced by Rep. Ann Fredericks (R-Sanford), mandatory safety inspection requirements would be repealed for the majority of cars that are driven by Mainers on a daily basis.
“Other states have already abolished this antiquated requirement that is an inconvenience,” Rep. Fredericks said..
The bill would not alter inspection rules for commercial vehicles, trailers, semitrailers, and fire trucks, according to the official summary of the legislation.
[RELATED: Maine Considers Repealing Annual Vehicle Inspection Requirement]
Another bill looks to amend state law so that vehicle safety inspections are only required every other year, instead of annually.
Public hearings have not yet been scheduled for any of these bills, although the Transportation Committee can be expected to put them on the calendar at some point in the near future.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="36928 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=36928">21 Comments
screw that! northern maine has to drive 150 miles to south to go to the dentist!
How about first 5000k free for everyone! I’m sick and tired of low income trash!!!!!!
You can do it, but I’m still registering my car in NH.
Annual excise tax goes to the towns…. so what, raise property taxes to cover? No problem just raise rent to make up the difference.
average mainer drives way more than 14.5k miles a year… like twice that..
what ever happened to not needing a license or registration in southern maine? letting illegals drive… remember that?
What is with these people?
Weak Republicans just playing a shell game by ending one tax only to create a new one that will most like cost us more and will require the government to monitor us.
More surveillance and invasion of privacy.
Pound sand buddy
No way. No more taxes period. We don’t want an excise tax, period. And we don’t want annual vehicle inspections either. I can decide if my vehicle is safe to drive, not my state.
“The first 10,000 miles driven every year would be exempt from this tax for those who are over the age and 65, as well as for those who reside in a household with an annual income of less than $40,000.”
The usual socialist Maine way: Karl Marx: ” To those with need from those with ability.”
This falls in line with the NWO/Agenda 21 plan to make it unaffordable to live in Maine where people have to migrate to urban areas, making the state more or less a wildlife refuge. Do you think you’re Free, Mainers?? The elites can KMA!
Oh man, this is just the continuation of Nickel and diming the tax paying public to death to support the non taxpaying freeloaders that have been drawn in by Janet and her ilk. JFC. Wake up!
it would work for me seeing i dont put that many miles on and i am on ssd so my income is plenty low enough. and as for eliminating the passenger vehicle inspections i have known about that one for a while now and would like to see it gone for good.
This disproportionately would impact rural communities and favor urban communities. Drive 5 miles to a dentist,10 cents total. 100 miles, a buck each way. Commute 30 miles to work? $3 a week just to work.
Also, with the deficit and how congress is struggling to come to a budget, I don’t have faith that there wouldn’t be an “emergency redirection” of the community pool before being disbursed to counties. Mainecare needs funded, or that poorly funded asylum shelter, or some other fund mismanagement needs the money.
Better to leave it as it is and in the hands of the counties.
It wouldn’t stop a .01 per mile. A year or two from now, it will increase to .02 and so on. This a ‘foot in the door’ type of bill that will get amended and amended.
And what about those of us who are fortunate enough to leave Maine for Florida in the winter months? We’ll be taxed on driving through 12 other states every year and yes we live in a rural area so we’ll be penalized. This tax WILL be a creeping tax…start at a penny and in the next legislative session will be 2 cents. Come on Republicans, come up with better ideas.
no way driving mile tax would be increased every year, this state is really getting stupid.. the tax willl be bigger than the excise tax on vechile.. stupid politicians get rid of them.all.
just lower the excise tax some and eliminate inspections. screw the mile tax
Wtf ! Just ban it all already!! Let this state go bankrupt
We pay a freakin gas tax already, stop squeezing more out of us.
This will do two things. First, a lot of summer people have a vehicle they register in Maine and leave here when they go south — they’re now not paying taxes at all because they only use the vehicle on the camp road during the summer.
Conversely, the working poor will pay a LOT more because they currently are only paying $100 in excise tax for the clunker — but are commuting to Bangor and running up $50K a year. That means that the person will now pay $500 — a five times increase for a job that may not pay that well — and we’ll have even more people staying home and living on welfare.
In order to break even on this — to pay no more or less than today — you will have to have a fairly new vehicle and not drive many miles — i.e. live in Southern Maine. To come out ahead, you have to have a brand new vehicle and live in Portland.
Why on earth are Republicans supporting this — this is nothing but an attempt to make people drive fewer miles….
I would vote for General Mills before I vote for any Republican that supports this — and if this is passed with Republican support, you can kiss the Maine GOP goodbye until at least 2060 if not longer — any working class Republican currently alive will never forgive you!!!!
how about screw you and your fees.