Sound Transit’s use of old schedule to value vehicles is fraud

The Herald’s June 15 editorial regarding Sound Transit’s ST3 tax package is frustrating to say the least, and misleading and misguided to boot.

I did not vote for ST3, since my view was that Sound Transit should do what we voting taxpayers had already approved before they asked for billions more of our tax dollars, $54 billion more. Regardless, the voters approved ST3, so that’s the way it is.

However! I had diligently read everything I could see or find about this ST3 situation, and I never heard or read that Sound Transit would defraud the taxpayers by using a years-out-of-date depreciation schedule to come up with the new car tab rates. In the editorial, it states “the depreciation schedule was not wildly discussed before the election,” and why wasn’t it, I ask.

Because it is a ripoff and fraud; that’s why. Who in their right mind would knowingly approve Sound Transit to use a vehicle depreciation schedule that was more than ten years out of accuracy? Give me a break! I read every article, flier, three newspapers, etc., on this ST3 situation, and never heard that the taxpayers would be defrauded in this way. That aspect alone drives me insane, and I cannot fathom how Sound Transit can get away with this blatant ripoff.

There was a “new schedule” for depreciation that was adopted by the state in 2006, 11 years ago, but Sound Transit can use the older schedule that improperly, incorrectly, fraudulently inflates the value of vehicles? And we were supposed to know that before those who voted for ST3 actually voted? I beg to differ that this could in any way be acceptable to any taxpaying citizen.

I am not asking that the ST3 voted-in taxes now be totally stopped. I am insisting that this blatant fraud by Sound Transit now cease and desist, and the correct, accurate 2006-approved schedule be used for valuing vehicles. For Sound Transit to get away with using the old schedule boggles the mind.

Janet Waite

Lynnwood