‘Your Wallet’: The wheel tax that drives Lincoln

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — If you register a car in the city of Lincoln, you pay a wheel tax.

But what exactly is it and where does your money go?

It’s been around since 1958. Every time you register your car and get those new tags to put on your license plate, you pay.

For a car, it’s $74 a year. For a pickup? $111. Even owners of motorcycles, big trucks and semitrailers have to pay it if they live in Lincoln.

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“There’s about 230,000 vehicles in the city of Lincoln that pay for that wheel tax,” said Thomas Shafer, assistant director of the Lincoln Transportation and Utilities Department. “It brought in about $19.7 million in the last fiscal year.”

So, where does that money go?

Of that $74 per car, more than half of it goes to building new streets and maintaining or repairing our current roads, which includes repairing potholes.

There are also things like snow removal and taking care of traffic signals and signs.

City leaders say if you break it down, that $74 is costing you less than a quarter a day.

“It’s probably something we take for granted when you get up, go down the street and you want it to be smooth and convenient. You don’t think about your investment,” Shafer said. “I got up this morning, and for 20 cents, I got to drive to work relatively convenient. I had all the signals working for me with minimal disruptions.”

Some of the other money coming in to pay for road upkeep? The state gas tax, federal funds as well as the quarter-cent sales tax voters approved in 2019 for the Lincoln on the Move initiative.

“We have 2,600 lane miles,” Shafer said. “That means if we take all pavement in Lincoln, we could drive to New York and back with that. It puts it into perspective of the size of our system that we’re trying to maintain.”

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City officials say another important part of all of this is to be transparent with how much money is coming in and how it’s spent.

“We encourage folks to go to our website, and they can see how projects are coming along, how they’re funded, what sources of funding are being used,” Shafer said. “And they can see our street closing list and what’s coming up.”

Check out this link for more information on wheel tax, the cost and how it’s spent.

Editor’s note: This report is part of a weekly series Channel 8 is airing called “Your Wallet.” We’ll be looking into any topics that deal with your money. The reports air every Monday during the Channel 8 News at 6 p.m.

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