Campbell offers help with car rebate

Paul Clinton

Assemblyman John Campbell wants you to receive a rebate for the cost

of registering your car; he’s even willing to provide you the form to

claim it.

Campbell, on Wednesday, announced he would hand drivers a

sanctioned form from the Department of Motor Vehicles to request the

rebate. Gov. Gray Davis, on June 20, triggered a clause in a 1998 law

that ends a five-year period during which drivers paid only 0.6% to

register their vehicles, instead of the 2% it had been before the law

went into effect.

Beginning in October, drivers who register their vehicles will pay

three times what they paid last year.

Campbell has also joined a taxpayer lawsuit to overturn Davis’

decision and is crafting an initiative that would do the same.

“People will start getting their bills in less than a month,”

Campbell said Thursday. “We think we’re on very solid ground with

this case.”

Campbell added his name to a legal complaint filed by the Howard

Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., which was filed July 3. State Sen. Tom

McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) also appointed Campbell to co-chair a

committee that would develop an initiative for the November 2004

ballot.

Democrats have argued that the blame for the increase lies with

Republicans, specifically former Gov. Pete Wilson. It was Wilson who

signed the bill into law, which included a trigger clause that raised

the tax back to 2% when the state could no longer afford to cover the

difference.

Campbell posted the new form, an “application for refund,” on his

Assembly Web site (www.assembly.ca.gov/campbell). On the site,

Campbell walks drivers through the process of filling out the form,

which he advises be included with payment for registering the

vehicle. Be sure to save a copy of the completed form, Campbell said.

Campbell said drivers shouldn’t refuse to pay the increased fee,

since that could result in a ticket for expired tags. Pay the tax,

then apply for the rebate, Campbell said.

On the site, Campbell says the effort to overturn the tax “will

likely take a year or more.”

The process could parallel fees out-of-state drivers paid out in

the early 1990s. The $300 “smog impact fee,” as it was known, was

eventually thrown out by a judge. The drivers who paid it were all

eligible for rebates, but few applied. Less than 10% of the revenue

the state collected for those fees was paid back, Campbell said.