Published in the Beacon Hill Times, May 5, 1998

A few weeks ago, needing a truck to move some household items, I called Budget Car and Truck Rental. The price of a one-day rental was only $19.95. The clerk suggested I come by the Allston store.

When I arrived, I discovered the bill was $10.00 more, a fifty percent increase. The tax was one of those newly passed taxes to be used to finance the convention center.

"Next time," the clerk suggested, "go across the river to Cambridge." The tax, you see, only applies to Boston.

This tax is about as bizarre as one can imagine. It is high, it is oddly regressive, it is unevenly applied, and it has unfortunate and counterproductive side-effects.

When the legislature passed the convention center bill last year, the idea was that a new package of taxes would be used to provide a secure funding source for the debt needed to build the center. Because the convention center principally benefits the tourism industry, a series of taxes were levied that were supposed to affect those industries and the conventioneers that would be drawn to Boston.

That was supposed to be the idea behind the car rental tax. The thinking was that almost all cars are rented at airports and so, therefore, we would be taxing visitors to the city.

But after the legislation emerged into the light of day, it became clear that it was not so simple.

For one thing, after a series of compromises, the tax is a flat $10.00 fee. It's the same tax no matter whether one rents for a day or a month. The perverse effect is to penalize those who rent for shorter periods of time.

Moreover, the tax applies to Boston, and only to Boston. Quincy, Chelsea, Cambridge and other proximate towns and cities are exempt. Hyde Park is not.

One effect will be to drive car and truck rental business out of Boston and into surrounding areas — exactly what my Budget clerk was urging on me. Indeed, it's not hard to imagine rental car outfits setting up shop in towns close to Logan and sending vans around to collect their customers.

The other odd effect is to penalize those of us who don't own cars.

Many residents choose not to own a car and instead rent on weekends and other times they intend to be out of town. It's economic from their point of view and desirable from the city's point of view, because it keeps cars off our streets and out of limited residential parking.

There are some residents who rent literally every weekend; for them, the new tax burden will be $520 annually.

The right solution here is obvious: Massachusetts residents should be exempted from the tax itself. The legislature is now considering amendments that would accomplish just that. The amendment better pass soon. I may have to move some more furniture, and I would just as soon rent nearby.