High court tackles legality of Sound Transit car-tab fees
OLYMPIA — A legal tussle spurred by the latest voter-approved increase in Sound Transit car tabs reaches the state Supreme Court Tuesday.
Justices will take up the case of seven residents, including three from Snohomish County, who want to erase the rate hike approved by voters in 2016 to pay for Sound Transit 3 and refund the hundreds of millions of dollars that’s been collected from it.
Those taxpayers from the transit agency’s three-county service area contend the rise in the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax rate isn’t legal because it resulted from an unconstitutional provision in the state law that enabled Sound Transit to put the expansion plan on the ballot.
Attorneys for Sound Transit and the state counter that law, passed in 2015, is constitutional. A lower court upheld the law.
The hearing is set to begin at 1:30 p.m. It will be streamed live on www.tvw.org
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/high-court-tackles-legality-of-sound-transit-car-tab-fees/