Governor Dannel Malloy's plan to get rid of the car tax for most of vehicles in the state will not likely pass the legislature. That's according to the office of Democratic House Speaker Brendan Sharkey. WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports. A spokesman for Sharkey says that the car tax is one of the most regressive taxes the state has. On that, he's in agreement with Malloy. But Sharkey doesn't think that the governor's plan is the right one. So he's asking a legislative committee to study the issue further.
This comes on the same day that municipal leaders from New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, Waterbury, and Hartford joined labor unions from across the state to fight against the car tax and the governor's budget. They say his cuts to their funding will mean higher property taxes and layoffs. Jim Finley runs the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. Here's how he describes the governor's car tax proposal.
"Dead on arrival...I think we're in a discussion with Brendan Sharkey, the MORE Commission, and legislative leadership in a pledge to work with them to see if we could come up with some ways to alleviate the inequities of the car tax without penalizing municipalities and other property taxpayers."
Andrew Doba is Malloy's spokesman. He says the governor welcomes the chance to talk more about the car tax. "If you do the numbers, the average family in most of our cities and towns would save money at the end of that day and that's the goal. The goal is middle class tax relief and we are encouraged by having a conversation on how we do that." Malloy has said towns and cities need to set some priorities.
