Opponents

Property Tax Tool

If Question 2 is adopted by the voters on November 3rd, Maine’s towns and cities will see a significant reduction in the amount of motor vehicle excise tax revenue they receive. On a statewide basis, the deep reductions in the excise tax rates paid by the owners of newer cars and trucks, and the three-year excise tax exemptions provided to the owners of hybrid-type vehicles, will result in a $84 million (40%) reduction in excise tax revenue.

Each town and city will also experience a loss of approximately 40% of the excise tax revenue. This is money that in almost all cases is used to plow, maintain, repair and reconstruct the 14,000 miles of local roads in Maine and 850 municipally-owned bridges.

How each municipality responds to the loss of excise tax revenue would be up to the town or city’s legislative body – either the town meeting or town or city council. The response will likely be either a reduction in the amount of local road and bridge maintenance and repair or an increase in real estate property taxes to replace the lost excise tax revenue, or some combination of both.

If the voters in your town and city decide not to cut financial support to the local roads or public works programs, the only way for towns to make up the lost revenue is by increasing property taxes. The following information identifies by percentage the property tax increase in your community that would be necessary to achieve that result. We are unable to predict that a property tax increase of this magnitude will occur in every case. The information is being provided as a way to help identify the scope of the financial impacts of the excise tax proposal.