By Thomas R. Daly
An Alaska representative recently introduced House Bill 90, but HB 90 is nothing new. Instead, it’s a repeated attempt to apply a 10% rental tax to peer-to-peer car sharing users, like those who use Turo. As of the end of February, the bill is once again making its way through the Legislature with the full backing of a billion-dollar rental car conglomerate. Before it’s too late, I, along with the residents of Alaska, demand HB 90 be stopped once and for all.
It’s curious timing for a representative, elected by Alaskans, to introduce legislation taxing these same residents or eliminating their paths of income. It’s especially misguided for elected representatives to support billion dollar corporations instead of backing the small business efforts of their own constituents, especially considering that post-pandemic economic recovery is barely getting started. It makes us question who is actually being represented here.
To put it bluntly – now is not the time. It is not the time to tax constituents who use peer-to-peer platforms to make ends meet. It is not the time to prioritize massive corporations over the Alaskan entrepreneurs reinvesting in their own communities. Legislators, it is not the time to fail your fellow residents of Alaska.
Even without this bill passed into law, car-sharing hosts like myself are already competing on an uneven playing field. For instance, I pay my own vehicle licensing and registration fees, but billion-dollar rental car companies can pass these costs onto their customers. Rental car companies benefit from rental subsidies for these fees of up to $1.9 million every year in Alaska- not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the U.S. While I make my own full car payments and pay a retail rate on my personal vehicle, large rental corporations buy fleets of cars at a special wholesale rate.
The obvious solution would be to encourage and uplift small business owners and local ventures to reinvigorate our Alaskan economy, right? Nope. With the large new tax laid out in HB90, our own Alaskan representative threatens our existence and replaces us with a billion-dollar monopoly instead. It also punishes car sharing hosts who have provided viable marketplace options for consumers impacted by the recent rental car shortages and skyrocketing prices.
The multiple failures of bills like HB 90 represent the true desires of Alaskans and that of small business owners. What’s worse is the disregard of the wealth of evidence at hand that local small businesses owners like us promote local spending, revitalize our economies better than chains, and can efficiently provide services and reinvest in our communities better than any out-of-state corporation can.
Aside from being a car-sharing host and Alaskan, I’m writing as a lifelong business owner. After growing my business technology company for 20 years, my home state decided to prioritize contracts for massive, international companies. My representatives left me with no choice but to sell my business, to deprive Alaskans of a local Alaskan business. What I see here with HB90 is simply history repeating itself.
The bill’s sponsor argues HB 90 brings equity to the rental industry and would grow and diversify our economy. This couldn’t be more wrong. There is no equity in crushing hundreds if not thousands of local services, local ideas, and local values to line the already stuffed pockets of billion-dollar rental car corporations. There is no equity in eliminating paths of financial and social prosperity in our own communities to satisfy the demands of a corporate monopoly.
Protect our local community members and small business owners – do not endorse and do not pass HB90.
• Thomas R. Daly is an all-star host for Turo and a business owner in the Kenai area.
