Pet peeve for many

This morning's Lincoln Journal Star article blowing the lid off tax evaders has been the water-cooler topic of the week around town. There were over 100 comments posted before noon. Something about a physician registering his Porsche illegally in South Dakota to avoid his Nebraska taxes that seems to get people fired up. But for the average Joe who cheats to avoid Nebraska's higher vehicle taxes, there's evidently some sympathy .

Not from me. I pay mine, and I expect others to do likewise. This is just plain, flat, illegal. I think there's a lot to be said for trying to avoid these neighboring State shenanigans by adjusting motor vehicle taxes and fees to take away the incentive. That seems to be more efficient then investigating these difficult-to-prove cases. But that would require the legislature jimmying around with Nebraska's current tax structure, and is no excuse for violating the law in the meantime.

The Department of Motor Vehicles and the State Patrol have exposed the tip of a much larger iceberg, in my opinion. My downtown parking enforcement staff alone issued about 12,000 tickets for expired, fictitious or missing plates last year. The department as a whole cracked 20,000 (we have a heart--5,102 were warning tickets.) Every one of those is either tax evaded or tax delayed, and money out of the pocket of law-abiding Nebraskans. I don't think we came anywhere close to ticketing every violator, which makes we wonder exactly what percentage of cars on the road are improperly registered at any given time. My guess? About one in ten. Some of these are obvious (an expired tag), some less so (a vehicle registered in another County or State, even though it is domiciled in Lincoln.)

The law in Nebraska requires the vehicle to be registered within 30 days, and to be registered in the place where it is domiciled. It makes no difference if your family owns all of Custer County, if the vehicle spends more than half it's time living here in Lincoln, this is where it must be registered. This is widely violated by people who think because they still own grandma's lot in Loomis, they can avoid Lincoln's $49 wheel tax.

Here's the most succinct analyses of Nebraska's tax situation I've ever seen, from the LJS comments:

Why our taxes are high wrote on April 16, 2008 11:03 pm:
" Nebraska is 17th in land area and 37th in population of the 50 states. We lack natural resources and visitation dollars of states like Wyoming. Therefore, we have fewer people to pay for infrastructure (highways, etc) of a large land area. So, taxes are higher per capita. Don't like it? Move to a more populated state. I suppose I could move to Denver and have my taxes go down, but instead I accept it as the price I pay to live the good life."

And here's another one that caught my eye, regarding a legal loophole I am familiar with:

Outside City Limits wrote on April 16, 2008 12:56 pm:
" Check businesses whose owners live outside city limits as well. Used to work for a company that was located inside city limits but the owner himself lived outside of the limits. He had ALL company vehicles licensed at his home address to keep from paying the city sales tax along with wheel tax."