I’ve been accused of being like a dog with a bone, but I’m not going to apologize for obsessing about broad-based taxes, which include the cost of renewing your car’s registration. I wrote about this matter almost a year ago and revisited the topic recently in my article comparing town hall to city hall, but there were still some unanswered questions nagging me. Because Lily Tang Williams lives in a town and has a birthday this month, I reached out to her with questions about her renewal expenses. She has a Suburban and a new Tesla and forwarded her EB2 email bill from Weare today, and that inspired some follow-up questions.
Most people already know that there are local charges and state charges. Being a driver of a small car and one with a repertoire of driving them into the ground, I never considered the forest from the trees of my own car’s data. I’ve been paying $43.20 to the state as far back as I’ve been saving my PAPER renewal bills, which was 2016. I capitalize the word PAPER because I recently found out that having a renewal bill mailed to you with a tear-off stub and enclosed payment envelope is a luxury NOT available everywhere in the state.
With that said, I had mistakenly surmised that everyone paid $43.20 to the state, but I was wrong! If men are reading this, let it be known that admitting to a man that I am wrong is NOT easy, but such is life. Anyway, having looked at various registrations for cars in cities and towns, I noticed that some people were/are paying $55.20, $118.08, and $155.20 to the state instead of $43.20 like I’ve been doing. After seeing Lily’s state charges of $55.20 for her Suburban and $155.20 for her Tesla, I just had to look further into that. It turns out that the state charge is multiplied by the weight of the car, hence the charges I’ve seen of $43.20, $55.20, and $118.08, but I also learned that there’s a $50 surcharge for Priuses and $100 for Teslas. As for the latter, I’m totally ok with surcharging Hollis Rep Kat McGhee because I despise her, but that’s the state part of the bill and I’ve read that the new budget bill calls for higher charges in 2026 though I don’t know if it’s a flat inflation or if it’s selective like the way that Nashua’s property taxes have exploded unequally. As motorists using COVID parlance, we might not be “all in this together,” but any complaints would be best directed at our reps and senators.
With the state part of the renewal bill out of the way, it’s time to focus on the local part, and now is a good time to call attention to this for those who live in a city because elections are this fall. Though one’s car depreciates over the years, its current value ought to be the same for its rural and urban counterparts, but please look at the local surcharges on top of the valuation of your car. Whether or not your alderman is seeking reelection, there are doorstep conversations to be had with candidates, incumbent or not, about whether or not your city should be charging one or more of them.
For example, Nashua charges a $3 Waste fee and Manchester charges a $2 Parking Trust Fund fee. Merrimack, though not a city, charges a $5 Transportation fee, aka “Municipal Transportation Improvement.” A Londonderry town councilor recently told me about quashing local efforts to impose that on his constituents. Manchester has a nifty link with a menu of fees that I surmise are being imposed on all eligible vehicles in that city, including a $2 Title Application fee and a $1 Data Processing fee. “That’s life in the big city,” one might often hear, but one gratitude item for Nashua motorists is that not all Manchester fees are being charged in Nashua. Please tell your alderman or candidates for alderman that you want to keep it that way.
If you live in a town, you must already know that the things I just said work differently in that warrant articles are voted on each spring. If you want your town to stop charging one or more of those fees I just mentioned, say something to your selectmen and candidates for selectman this winter. Another thing worth mentioning is the possibility of receiving a paper renewal bill in the mail. Having been in Nashua for so long, I took for granted and wrongly assumed that everyone gets a bill with a tear-off stub and payment envelope, whether or not they live in a town or city. I got my rude awakening earlier this month.
You might live in a community that rejects the idea of making a paper bill available for some predictable reasons. One of them is that paying Kinkos or their competition is an expense that has to get reclaimed somewhere. Nashua charges a $1 Mail Processing fee to those mailing in their renewals. Today’s price of a stamp is $.78, but I would still prefer shelling out $1.78 to mail in a check over that $2.95 credit card processing fee to EB2 online to avoid the errand and nuisance of fighting traffic and waiting in line to do it in person. That’s just me, but I wanted to call attention to that in case you feel the same way and want to share that thought with your selectmen or candidates for selectman. Think of a big town, such as Pittsburg, and how many miles on the odometer, round trip, one might require to visit a town hall that probably has very limited hours of operation. And some people just don’t like using credit cards or have multiple vehicles registered to different family members and not due for renewal at the same time. If you live with a spouse and multiple teenage kids, all with cars registered to YOU, mailing in renewal payments can all be done with that $.78 stamp on one envelope for all of them though you’ll still get the $1 Mail Processing fee on each of them.
Why am I telling you all this? The critical answer you might have is that it’s a squatter in my mind. It is. Also, it’s an odd-numbered year and our legislature is in recess, so that’s one thing that helps fill the temporary vacancy in my mind. You might shrug it off as unimportant, but to that I will ask you to consider how many cars are registered in your community. A dollar, or 2 or 3, will ADD up for you, but the total dollars saved is MULTIPLIED by the number of cars registered locally.
