Document Type

Report

Publisher

Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, University of Maine

Rights and Access Note

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for non-commercial uses. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Publication Date

1-2024

Publisher location

Orono

Abstract/ Summary

The report updates three earlier reports looking at gasoline use and gasoline taxes paid by users of ATVs, snowmobiles and gasoline powered watercraft in Maine in 2001 following the passage of LD 977. Given time and financial limitations, this report maintains the same fuel use per vehicle/watercraft per season as determined earlier. This implies that these nonroad vehicles have the same level of use per year and that the efficiency per vehicle/watercraft is unchanged. While there has been increases in engine efficiency generally, engines and vehicle sizes have also risen as have the size of boat trailers. While there are different registration trends between ATVs, snowmobiles and watercraft, the overall trend is an increase in the number of nonroad vehicles. Given this starting point and taking into account Maine’s current tax on gasoline of $0.30/gallon, we find that ATVs, snowmobiles and gasoline powered recreational watercraft paid $1,076,772, $2,318,425, $2,296,193 respectively in gas taxes. This is a total of $5,691,390 in gas tax paid by these nonroad users in 2022. We also estimate the current distribution of gasoline taxes to nonroad user groups under current law and compare this to gas taxes paid by each user group.

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