State News Was Led by Weight-Distance Taxes, Fraudulent CDLs and New Jersey’s Truck Ban

The trucking industry knocked off the hated weight-distance tax in Idaho but lost out to voter sentiment in Oregon; fallout from commercial driver licensing bribery spilled across state lines; and New Jersey threw a roadblock across shortcuts taken by interstate truckers.

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American Trucking Associations convinced a state court that Idaho’s weight-distance tax, which went easy on carriers of certain home-grown commodities, discriminated against interstate trucking. The state agreed to restructure its tax system and give $27 million back to improperly taxed truckers.

Idaho replaced its weight-distance tax with a vehicle registration fee based on gross vehicle weight and three ranges of mileage traveled within the state. The state also mailed the first refund checks, totaling $4.7 million, to smaller carriers Nov. 13. Larger carriers will receive their shares once reimbursement for their owner-operators is figured out.

The Oregon Legislature, meanwhile, had already repealed the first weight-distance tax of them all, which had served as a model for other states. In 1999, after years of lobbying by the Oregon Trucking Associations, state lawmakers replaced Oregon’s 50-year-old system with a tax on diesel fuel — truckers had been exempt from the state fuel tax under the weight-distance arrangement — and significant increases in vehicle registration fees to raise an equivalent amount of revenue.

But opposition, led by the Oregon-Idaho chapter of AAA (formerly known as the American Automobile Association), made the issue part of a public referendum that also included a five-cent increase in the state tax on gasoline, which the governor wanted to improve roads. The vote came in May as gasoline prices were well on their way to new heights, and the public overwhelming rejected the measure.

Disappointed trucking interests now hope to apply the successful Idaho legal argument to Oregon in another attempt to kill off weight-distances for good. The industry considers Oregon the “linchpin,” meaning that if its tax system can be consigned to the waste bin, the three remaining states — New York, New Mexico and Kentucky — may also be convinced to retire their paperwork-intensive, easily evaded weight-distance taxes and replace them with a modern taxing system.

For the full story, see the Jan. 1 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.