Exempt Carsharing Members from Rental Car Tax

To:  Washington State and King County decisionmakers

As Washington and King County residents and members of Flexcar Seattle carsharing, we believe that members of carsharing organizations should specifically be exempt from local rental-car taxes.

Carsharing members are overwhelmingly local residents, not visitors -- unlike most rental car customers. By serving as an alternative to private vehicle ownership, carsharing has been demonstrated to decrease members’ driving and to increase our use of alternative transportation modes, and thus to confer multiple benefits to cities where it operates.

As members know, carsharing differs from traditional car rental in important ways, and is characterized by:

• Self-service reservation, pickup, and return
• Membership basis, with applicants required to be approved via driving background check and by establishing a payment mechanism
• Use by the hour or by the day, with short, several-hour trips most common
• Rates include gas and insurance
• Vehicle sites are geographically distributed, and are most often located at or near transit.

Carsharing has been shown to positively influence transportation behavior. Specifically, carsharing:

• Leads many members to sell or to delay or entirely avoid purchasing a personal vehicle
• Takes 5 to 15 vehicles off the road for every carsharing vehicle in service
• Increases public transit ridership while effectively extending and complementing public transit
• Increases walking and bicycling for transportation
• Facilitates use of low-emissions and hybrid vehicles common in carsharing fleets.

Car rental has not been shown to yield similar beneficial effects.

King County and Seattle can be justifiably proud to be the incubator and home of the first national carsharing company in the U.S. -- Flexcar. The Seattle region is home to over 300 carsharing vehicles, used by 20,000 Flexcar carsharing members. Carsharing also serves Vancouver, WA (Flexcar Portland), Bellingham (Community CarShare) and Bremerton (SCOOT).

In sum, because carsharing is distinct from traditional car rental, with local customers, locally based operators, and local benefits, we urge the decisionmakers of Washington State and King County to specifically exempt carsharing members from local rental car taxes. Thank you for your consideration and action.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Exempt Carsharing Members from Rental Car Tax Petition to Washington State and King County decisionmakers was created by and written by Jamie Cheney (jamie.cheney@flexcar.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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