Cost of State Registration?

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:SSCBf.11315$jR.11298@fed1read01...
[...]
Are we ever truly free of, or without need of, the GA "infrastructure?"

Depends on what services you actually use. But plenty of pilots use
practically no infrastructure except the pavement they operate from.

That said, I think it's a mistake to expect any of the fees to be rational.
Registration fees for cars are not exclusively used for roads and related
maintenance for example. The actual cost of registration varies from state
to state (just as it does for airplanes), as does the means of calculating
(fees, taxes, some combination).

The different in infrastructure expenses is just a single example of why the
fees can't really be compared directly. It's not an entire explanation, nor
should one expect the fees to be otherwise comparable if the infrastructure
costs did happen to be similar, or even the same.

The cost of registering an airplane, and of registering a car, is fairly
arbitrary. Fees are structured however each individual state chooses to
structure them, with the money going to wherever each individual state
choose to send them. Each state constitution may restrict those aspects,
but each state has its own constitution as well. Some states may appear to
make more sense than some others, but I don't think there's any reason for
any state to be expected to be entirely sensible. It's government, after
all.

Pete

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
Some states may appear to make more sense than some others, but I don't
think there's any reason for any state to be expected to be entirely
sensible. It's government, after all.

Pete

Pete,

Ain't that the truth..

Jay B

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:6XBBf.7851$zh2.3507@trnddc01...
Jay Beckman wrote:

I didn't put a lot of emphasis on it, but what I was getting at was the
cost to register versus the cost of the vehicle being registered.

But you still seem to have missed the point. The major point of license
fees is to pay the costs of infrastructure. There's a lot of that with
cars, so the registration cost is high.

IIRC:

I hate to tell you this but most registration money goes into the states
General (ie, **** away on political favors) Fund (about 75% in AZ if my
B-I-L is correct).

Same thing with fuel taxes.

Infrastructure is often paid out of federal grant money and highway funds.

"Jay Beckman" wrote in message
news:QwnBf.11236$jR.2385@fed1read01...
I'm not an owner but I have to say I'm stunned...

Considering how much dinero the state of Arizona wants for me to register
earth-bound vehicles, I would have supposed it costs far more to register
an
aircraft than it would appear it does.

Unlike cars, aircraft require basically no expendature on their part for
infrastructure to allow the aircraft to operate, so it basically is just a
cheap tax for them to implement... Easy money, low expendature... Kind of
like speeding tickets for automobiles...