Short-term relief before fees start
The new fees wouldn’t take effect for more than a year, until the 202223 fiscal year.
In the meantime, in a nod to a recent public request from Gov. Jared Polis, the sponsors say they will propose slight reductions in vehicle registration fees in 2022 and 2023 as short-term relief for vehicle owners — totaling $90 million, or about $10 a year for the average owner.
Here is a look at some of the proposed fees:
• Gas: A new fee, collected at the wholesale level, would trickle down to consumers at the pump and start at 2 cents per gallon, costing the average driver about $10 a year. It would rise by 2 cents every two years until it reaches 8 cents. Starting in mid-2032, the fee would be indexed to a road construction cost index to rise with inflation.
• Trucks: Trucks that run on diesel would pay an extra 6 cents per gallon. The fee would rise to 8 cents by mid-2026, with indexing starting in mid-2032.
• Deliveries: Consumers would pay a flat 25-cent fee on online purchases that are delivered by vehicle, to offset the impact of deliveries on roads, congestion and the environment. Deliveries that don’t use trucks or automobiles would be exempt.
• Electric vehicles: Owners already pay an extra $50 on their registrations each year, and that would begin rising with inflation. New additional fees would be added to approximate the loss of fuel taxes from electric vehicles, with steady increases phased in: $9 a year for full-electric vehicles, rising to $90 by mid-2031; and $3 a year for plug-in hybrids, rising to $27 by mid-2031. Installment payment options are expected.
• Ride-hailing: App providers such as Uber and Lyft, known as transportation network companies, would have to pay a flat 30-cent fee per trip, or 15 cents per shared ride or rides in zero-emission vehicles. Those fees would rise with inflation.
• Other fees: Others would apply to personal car-sharing services ($2 per day), car rentals (an existing $2-per-day fee would be newly indexed to inflation), taxi rides and, once they become more viable, autonomous vehicles. The latter two fees are still being worked out, however.
According to state projections, the gas and delivery fees would be the biggest money makers, each bringing in more than $1 billion over a decade.