Evening star., 1931-12-20
TAX LAW EXPECTED
TO CUT GAS SALES
Four-cent Levy Proposal
Seen DivertingRTrade
to States.S

One OF the results expected ut the
District Building If the bill pa.sed BY
the House to increase the gasoline tax
to 4 cents becomes law Is that A. will
drive away a substantial amount OF
business from Washington filing sta
tionS. District Auditor Daniel j
Donovan observed yesterday that there
is large amount of gas bought IN
Washington by residents Of the metro
| politan area who live beyond the Dis
trict line for the sole reason 1t can be
bought cents cheaper per gallon here
than In Maryland and 3 cents cheaper
than in Virginia. When this uifferen-
tial disappears, the incentive to buv
| In Washington will disappear with 1t
! Consequently Maj. Donovan does not
! look for an increase in revenues Of the
District at all proportionate to the
prospective increase in the rate. He
would not estimate the probable in
crease. and said that any such esti-
mate made by anybody would not be
much more than guess. Whatever
it is, however. Maj. Donovan does not
believe that it will be enough to take
care Of all of the Highway Depart
ment's work. The gas tax at present
is available for new street work and
! for repair, but in practice none of it
/ has ever been used for repair, as all
of this has come out of the general
! fund. Assuming the passage of the
| bill, the increase in tie gas tax fund
would probably be transferred to the
repair item, releasing that much of
the general fund.
Finds Some Support.
| So far as is known, none of the DiA-
trict officials favor the new tax by it
self. although it has considerable sup
port if coupled with an elimination of
! the assessment law for new street paw
! ing which replaced the so-called Bor-
| land amendment. The amendment and
its successor have proved extremely
difficult to administer, involving the
| District in a moraSS of litigation from
which it has not yet extricated itself
! Under the new formula for charging
/ these assessments the law results in
| placing heavy routine burden on the
assessors Office, which would be gladly
exchanged for the relatively painless
method of collecting the gasoline tax
The increased gas tax in place OF the
| old Borland law was specifically rec
commended by Corporation Counsel
| William w. Bride when the question
OF reshaping the Borland law was up
/ at the last session Oh congress, Dut
+ nothing came of it.
/ Since its inception in 1925. through
the fiscal year 1888. with the last two
years estimated, the 2-Cent tax will
have yielded the District sl1,751,473
To this fund is added the sum received
from assessments against properties,
amounting with the same estimates
as before to s1,748 305.75, making a
total of S13,499.7 1887.
The 1882 appropriation act carried
S1175 900 out of general funds for
street and repair work, The total for
the Highway Department was S4,392,-
/ 9lO. of which 50 900 900 was from the
gas tax The 1888 estimates of the
Budget Bureau, now before Congress,
contemplate a total of s4.435,5l0 of
which S1,960,000 is to come from the
gas tax OF the appropriations from
general funds, Sl,0l5 900 is for repairs
to streets.
The table above shows rather graphi-
cally the collapse Of the system Of COL
( lecting money for street repair by as
sessing abutting property owners. The
total received from this source in 1881
was considerably less than half of the
total received in 1929. With these as
sessments eliminated. an extra 2-cent
/ tax on gasoline would possibly make
up more than the difference.