BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ERLANGER -- Thanks to revenue from new businesses, Erlanger will eliminate its unpopular motor vehicle tax on Jan. 1, city officials said.
Evolving from the decades-old city sticker fee, the motor vehicle tax initially was needed to generate income for street repairs, said Erlanger Council Member Tom Rouse.
However, today that income is no longer needed with the opening of major businesses within Erlanger limits, Mr. Rouse said. Those include Toyota's North American manufacturing headquarters and Wild Flavors Inc., a German company.
"Now that we have all this new business, we want to pass some of the benefit on to the taxpayers," Mr. Rouse said.
In recent years, several Northern Kentucky cities, including Fort Thomas and Fort Wright, did away with city sticker fees, largely because of their unpopularity.
Last fall, Erlanger Mayor Marc T. Otto Sr. established a tax reduction committee headed by Mr. Rouse.
Its mission was to study some of the smaller city taxes, with an eye toward reducing or eliminating any unneeded ones.
At the suggestion of Council Member Ken Yaden, a former police chief who had long made the elimination of the unpopular tax a personal goal, the committee first focused on the motor vehicle tax.
Originally set at $44.30 a year for cars or trucks valued at $10,000, Erlanger's motor vehicle tax was cut in half, to $22.15, on Jan. 1, said City Administrator Bill Scheyer.
It will be eliminated this coming January.
"We wanted something that would distribute the benefit evenly to almost everyone throughout the city," Mr. Scheyer said. "Almost everyone in town owns at least one car or truck, so as a result, everybody benefits."
"There were several (taxes) that we could have ditched," Mr. Rouse said. "But this one has always been unpopular."
The motor vehicle tax initially brought in $250,000 a year, a figure that was reduced to $125,000 a year when it was cut in half on Jan. 1.
"I wrote this year's budget without $125,000 in it, and looked to see if we could make ends meet without that money," Mr. Scheyer said. "Our conclusion was that we did have enough new money coming in from local companies, and we expect more in the future."
Erlanger city officials hope the elimination of the motor vehicle tax is just the beginning of more local tax cuts.
