Drivers caught between tax hike, repeal

Alicia Robinson

If you have a car registration fee due, you’re better off making a

trip to the post office than the Department of Motor Vehicles.

For now, drivers with registration expiring between Oct. 1 and

Jan. 29 are being charged a tripled license fee if they visit the DMV

to pay in person.

Although Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first order of business

after taking office was to repeal the license fee increase that

became effective Oct. 1, car owners must mail in their payments if

they want to pay the reduced amount now.

“We expect that to change some time in the not-too-distant

future,” DMV spokesman Steve Haskins said. “We’ve had to reprogram

all our computers to handle this, which is a mammoth job. And until

we get that job done ... we’re just asking people to handle it by

mail, which quite frankly is probably the best way to handle it

anyway.”

Visitors to Costa Mesa’s DMV office on Friday had mixed responses

to the fluctuating car registration fees.

Sonie Czupryk of Fountain Valley left without paying her license

renewal fee. She said her fee shot up from $79 to $282 because the

increase.

She wasn’t sure what she’d have to pay, she said, because she’d

heard conflicting stories from the media and from talking to people.

A DMV employee “told me to pay the whole thing and I would be

reimbursed,” she said. “I’m not going to wait in line for an hour to

pay it. You bet I’ll want my money back.”

While waiting in line, Linda Tanner of Costa Mesa said she’s been

in Michigan for seven months and didn’t know about the fee changes.

“I don’t have the money to burn, that’s for sure,” she said.

She’ll mail in her payment if it makes a big different in the

cost, she said.

Other customers, such as Sherrill Svalstad of Fountain Valley, got

their renewal notices before the Oct. 1 fee increase.

“I didn’t even think about it,” she said. “I have an old car, so

it’s not very much anyway.”

Louise McNeil of Newport Beach came by Friday to renew her

driver’s license. She dealt with the car registration fee in a

different way.

“I bought my car in the middle of September so I didn’t have to

pay the car tax,” she said.

Czupryk said she will pay her fee soon, but she added, “Who knows

when they’re going to refund us? It’ll be a nice surprise in the mail

when it comes.”

After paying her license fee, Tanner said she was charged about

what she expected. If a refund is due her, she said, “I’m not going

to worry about a few bucks. I’ll let the state have it.”

Haskins said while some customers may be confused about license

fee amounts, he hasn’t heard of any problems.

“I think people are just so glad that they’re able to pay the

lower car tax in the first place,” he said. “We’ve really worked hard

to make sure that the whole process is really simple.”

He said the DMV expects to give about 4 million refunds to

California residents who paid increased license fees. Refunds will be

retroactive to Oct. 1.

DMV employee Ali Mattison on Friday was directing customers into

two lines in front of the office. Some people have had questions

about the car license fees, and “nobody really knows anything,” he

said.

For him and other employees, the office’s reduced staff is a

bigger problem than car-tax worries, he said.

Layoffs because of state budget cuts have whittled the Costa Mesa

office’s staff from 26 employees to seven, Mattison said.

“That’s why our customers are getting upset,” he said.

For information on vehicle license fees visit

https://www.dmv.ca.gov.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She can be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.