The money would be used to pay for transportation projects.
If approved it would increase the total base cost of a passenger car plate to $39.50 and a motorcycle plate to $33.50.
However, local jurisdictions already can add permissive local taxes ranging from $5 to $20 and so the current cost of plates can be as much as $54.50 depending on the county you live in, said Lindsey Bohrer, BMV spokeswoman.
That is the fee currently charged in Montgomery County, said Mike Brill, spokesman for Montgomery County Auditor Karl Keith, who runs a BMV office in the county building.
A second proposal in the state transportation budget would increase the service fee paid to the deputy registrars who run the state’s approximately 200 Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) offices. The transaction fee would go up by $1.75 to $5.25 for services provided by the BMV, according to Bohrer.
She said the fee paid to the contractors who operate those offices hasn’t increased since 2004.
“This issue is really being pushed by the Ohio Deputy Registrar Association,” Brill said.
Both House Minority Leader Fred Strahorn, D-Dayton, and State Rep. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, oppose the changes.
“We need to rebalance taxes so consumers and the middle-class families who drive our economy have economic stability, not find new ways to nickel-and-dime working people struggling to get by,” Strahorn said. “Using fee hikes to help pay for yet another tax-shift to benefit the wealthy will not create jobs or drive economic growth, but continue to hold Ohio back.”
Antani said he is “against all tax increases.”
“Working families have a hard enough time trying to make ends meet and transportation is vital. Transportation gets people to their jobs,” Antani said. “I don’t want to make it more expensive for a single mother or a working family to get their license plate renewed.”
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