The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1930-01-30
Automobile License Fee
Must Be Paid By Feb. IS
Not Tax. But Part of Travel
COst-Helps Reduce bad
Roads Toll"

February is the shortest month
in the year, yet we have to pay
taxes twice. The last day to get
automobile licenses is February Is.
and personal property taxes must
be paid on or before Feb. %.
| The auto license fee, however, is
not a tax in the ordinary sense OF
the word, according to a highway
bulletin. The license fee is just q
part of the car owners transporta-
ton bill, and he pays according to
! the use he makes of the roads. The
man with a large, expensive car
pays much more than the man
with a small car. The man with
two or three cars pays accordingly.
Other taxes for the support of
the general government are based
on the ability to pay, regardless Of
direct benefits. School taxes are
based on the property man owns
| and not on the number of children
he sends to school. Very often
those who pay the smallest taxes
have the most children.
1
or pay a freight bill, you pay both
for the operation of the train and
the upkeep of the rails and road
bed. When you travel by automo-
bile or haul your goods by truck,
you pay the vehicle bill at the ga
rage and the filling station, while
/; the road cost is paid through the
secretary of state. It is called a
tax, but it is part of your travel
fare or freight bill.
| The auto tax, it is true, is moi
the whole road bill. There is also
the gas tax, and the portion OF
your property tax which goes tc
state aid, county and town roads
But the bulletin points out thai
the license fee and the two-thirds
of the gas tax going to the trunk
! highway fund, are less than five
per cent of what the average cal
owner pays for the upkeep of his
car, while all the road taxes, state
and local, are only ten per cent ID
the average motor bill.
The biggest tax, the bulletin adds
is not paid in February, but il
paid the year around. It is the tau
extracted from every motorist by
bad roads. Since the trunk high
way plan was adopted in 1921 and
| a direct good roads tax levied on
every car owner, this bad roads
tax" has been greatly reduced. Tn
fact the reduction in the bad
roads tax" is several times as great
as the total good roads tax.
The bad roads tax, however
has not been abolished. It is paid
in large sums by motorists who
venture out and get stuck in III
passable roads during the spring
breakup, and it is paid in smaller
but more frequent installments by
every car owner who must travel
on roads whose traffic exceeds
their capacity, so that they are
travel worn, washboardy, rutty or
dusty. The bad roads tax is paid
in many ways, gasoline bills. tire
requirements, repair bills, lost
time, laundry bills and innumer-
able other ways. But each year,
as we continue paying the good
! roads fee, the bad roads tax grows
smaller.
The auto tax does not help build
local roads, someone says. But
since the state took over the trunk
highways, the counties and town
ships have been able to spend all
their money on the secondary
roads. More miles of county and
town roads have been graveled in
the last nine years than in the
whole previous history of the
state.