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Budget shortfalls means truckers will pay more in New York

As states grapple with ways to fill their transportation budget gaps, small-business truckers – who have also experienced declining revenues as a result of the recession – are finding out they are expected to make up for these revenue shortfalls.

OOIDA Life Member Lou Esposito of Duanesburg, NY, said this is exactly the case in his home state of New York. He said the state’s new transportation budget for 2010 is “full of fees and tax increases that will make it even harder for owner-operators to survive.”

“It’s like the transportation industry has a target on its back, and we are expected to make up for the state of New York’s money problems,” Esposito told Land Line Magazine recently. “If a state the size of New York can’t manage its money properly, how can they expect us to bail them out?”

Esposito said he contacted his state representatives about the impact this would have on his business as well as other small-business owners. The response he received back was that while his lawmakers opposed the increases, they were in the minority.

New York State Assemblyman George Amedore, R-Rotterdam, who voted against the transportation budget, said he was against it because of the increased fees and new tax increases that will hurt small-business owners like Esposito.

“If you look at the transportation industry as a whole, it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional taxes and fees,” Amedore told Land Line Now on Sirius XM radio. “To a small-business owner that does add up quite a bit …”

In the interview, Amedore highlighted some of the increased costs truckers will incur in New York. The renewal fee of the highway use tax permit will increase from $4 to $15, and the cost to renew a trailer is going up from $2 to $15. Also, he said the sales tax cap on fuel has been repealed, and that motor vehicle registration fees and motor vehicle license fees are going up as well.

He said the increases amount to about a “40-times-the-rate-of-inflation increase and about $8 billion more in spending from last year.”

Esposito said while he loves trucking, he is worried whether his business will be profitable after he adjusts his operating costs to account for the new fees and fines in his home state.

“This state is becoming impossible for small-business owners like me to survive,” he said. “At a time when we are hurting too, they don’t seem to care and just want to tax us more. It doesn’t make sense.”

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Staff Reporter Reed Black contributed to this report.