Orphan Road

Flexcar users are understandably peeved that their "rentals" are now subject to the same 18.7% tax rate as other rental cars. Alan Durning does a good job of explaining why these taxes exist:

Many Cascadian cities, with state authorization, put special sales taxes on rental cars. The rationale, as best I can understand, is that rental car taxes are mostly paid by nonresidents: business travelers with expense accounts and vacationers who don’t vote locally.

Flexcar, however, has created a whole constituency of in-state car renters, and suddenly the legislators are caught with their pants down (apologies to Larry Craig), taxing their constituents at a rate that will approach 20% once the RTID/ST2 taxes pass this November.