Lawmakers considering 1% tax instead of $15 appliance fee

AUGUSTA — A legislative committee may go along with a suggestion by merchants to replace flat $15 fees on appliances and electronic equipment that are scheduled to take effect this summer with a 1 percent tax, lawmakers said Tuesday.

“A $15 charge on something like a boom box is ludicrous,” complained Robert H. Reny Sr., president of a chain of 14 Maine department stores.

One percent fees are “a lot easier for the consumer to swallow” and simpler for businesses to deal with, Reny added.

His arguments appear to be winning favor with the Energy and Natural Resources Committee as it considers making a series of technical changes in the landmark trash-reduction and recycling law that the Legislature enacted last year.

“To me, it’s beginning to make more sense all the time,” said Rep. Edward L. Dexter, R-Kingfield, a member of the committee.

While the panel has spurned several attempts in recent weeks to substantially weaken the sweeping trash law, members are open to relatively minor changes that will make it easier to implement, said Rep. Michael H. Michaud, D-East Millinocket.

The law expands Maine’s returnable-container law, which now applies to beer, soda and liquor containers, to nearly all other non-dairy containers as of Sept. 1, makes the state responsible for siting and operating new landfills and incinerators and encourages communities to set up recycling programs.

Michaud said the committee appears to be willing to delay until January 1990 the effective date of the expanded bottle law to give beverage canners and bottlers more time to label their containers as redeemable and give distributors more time to plan for bottle pickups.

The law also imposes $15 fees on “brown goods” weighing 10 pounds or more, such as television sets, stereos and videocassette recorders, and on “white goods,” such as kitchen appliances, washers and dryers.

The fees, which take effect July 1, are supposed to go into a $5.5 million state fund to help finance community recycling programs and establish state-run disposal facilities.

Reny said he and other merchants acknowledge the need for a state recycling program and accept the fees as “a fact of life.” But he said that the system envisioned is confusing, unfair and gives an advantage to New Hampshire competitors.

Under the current system, he said, a consumer could pay $90 or more in fees after purchasing all of the separate units in a stereo system. Consumers buying relatively cheap tape decks would pay the same $15 fee as those purchasing expensive television sets, Reny added.

While preliminary indications are that the proposed 1 percent tax would generate the full $5.5 million for waste-management programs, the committee intends to study the matter further before endorsing the alternate fee, Dexter said.

But he said the proposed system “just makes a tax situation more equitable and easier to administer.”