The naked truth of 'double taxation'

BEN WEAR: GETTING THERE

The naked truth of 'double taxation'

Monday, May 29, 2006

I paid a double tax out at Lions Municipal Golf Course a couple of weeks ago.

My daughter will probably be hit with a double tax sometime this summer at Barton Springs.

And Travis County, if you can believe it, is levying a double tax on naked people.

This comes up in the context of toll roads and tireless toll road opponent Sal Costello, who has been inveighing for the past couple of years against what he and fellow travelers say is the double taxation of Austin-area highways. I get asked about this a lot. The general assumption seems to be that Costello is, at best, exaggerating.

Well, no, not really. We will be paying twice, to some degree, for some of the toll roads planned for Austin. But the real question is, as public policy, is that immoral or corrupt?

At the risk of making your head hurt, some quick review: There are four Austin-area toll roads under construction, all of them "traditional" toll roads. That is, they're cutting new paths rather overlaying existing roads and are funded mostly with borrowed money. So initially the tolls will be used to pay back the bonds, run toll operations and maintain the roads. However, the tolls are permanent, so someday most of the revenue will be profit and go to building other stuff.

Costello's main heartburn is with six other planned toll roads in Central Texas. Four of them will be expansions of existing roads, including two where construction is going on right now, paid for with 100 percent gas tax money. Two will be completely new roads, but one of those Texas 45 Southeast will be built with nothing but gas tax money.

To Costello and others, putting a toll on a road built purely with tax money is double taxation. However, he also considers it double taxation if you take an existing road like Ed Bluestein Boulevard which lies on right of way bought with tax money and then expand it and slap on tolls. You're taking a publicly purchased asset, the argument goes, and then charging people to use it.

But state Rep. Mike Krusee, the Williamson County Republican and toll advocate who's chairman of the House Transportation Committee, made an interesting point on a recent KLRU documentary about toll roads. He said, hey, it's not like we'll be paying the construction companies twice to build these roads. And he said that no one cries double taxation when they have to pay to swim in Zilker Park, site of an awful lot of public tax spending over the years.

The same logic applies to innumerable public assets, including city golf courses, the Erwin Center, parking meters and, while we're at it, Hippie Hollow, a Travis County park favored by skinny-dippers. The fees we pay for swimming, parking and golf are really just another form of taxes, and so are tolls. The city could jack up property taxes and eliminate fees at Barton Springs, but it won't. And the legislators could triple the gasoline tax and have fewer toll roads. But they won't.

There are equity and efficiency arguments to be made against toll roads, but they're hard to explain and sell. Double taxation is easier, catchy and just sounds wrong. But is it really?