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From: Jerome LIDZ [mailto:Jerome.S.Lidz@harrang.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:07 AM To: CARLSON Becky A Cc: PETERSON Tish A Subject: RE: Review, comment, input on draft AIS for gas tax action Becky, To me, those are sufficient reasons not to float the "credit" concept. Jerry THIS MESSAGE IS A CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION UNDER THE ATTORNEY- CLIENT OR ATTORNEY WORK PRODUCT PRNILEGE. »> "CARLSON Becky A" <becky.a.carlson@ci.eugene.or.us> 1/22/2008 10:59 AM »> Jerry, I also think the "crediY' for city tax paid would pose some significant administrative difficulties, because the dealers who remit the tax are not the ultimate payors of the tax--and we have no way to identify and credit the individual retail purchasers of gas. If there is a law on the books to collect a city gas tax, as well as the state taxes, I don't think dealers would have a choice other than to collect both taxes at the retail levei--and that is where we run into difficulties trying to administer a"credit." This is the same difficulty we contemplated when we considered the option of letting the 3-cent tax increase go into effect upon passage by council, and then somehow try to "refund" the additional tax collected, if a referendum to the ballot were successful. Tish, do you want to add any comments to this? ~becky From: Jerome LIDZ [mailto:Jerome.S.Lidz@harrang.com] Sent: Tuesday, ]anuary 22, 2008 10:36 AM To: CARLSON Becky A Subject: RE: Review, comment, input on draft AIS for gas tax action Becky. I see there is an editorial in today's RG, suggesting that the Council retain the two-cent portion of the tax until the Governor signs a bill increasing the statewide tax. At the public hearing last week, Councilor Bettman asked if the City could build that approach into a repeal of the sunset by adopting an automatic repeal of the two-cent tax as soon as there is an increase of the statewide gas tax. My answer was No, because the Council cannot make an ordinance's effect turn on action by someone else -- i.e., delegate its law-making authority to the legislature. However, it _might_ be possible to get to roughly the same result by providing for a credit against the City tax for tax paid to the state. The difficulty with that approach is that (I assume) we would not agree to a cent-for-cent set-off; in other words, we'd want a ten or twelve cent increase in the state gas tax before we'd agree to give up our two cents. And we'd want assurance that a specified portion of the state revenue would come back to the City. Those factors would ma.ke the set-off or credit very difficult to draft. And, of course, a future Council could always change whatever Council does now, so there's no way the Council can make a formal guarantee that it would repeal the two cents if the Legislature acts. In short, I don't recommend that approach, but in light of the RG editorial, I thought I should at least raise the concept. Jerry