Cash For Clunkers Generated Almost $2 Billion in State Taxes - Yea Clunker Program!

Washington DC October 13, 2009; The AIADA newsletter reported that struggling states and towns got a dose of badly needed money this summer from the Cash for Clunkers program that poured hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue into their budgets.

According to MSNBC, now, like the auto industry, recession-ravaged governments are seeing revenue fall off as car buyers take a breather from the frenzied sales of July and August. That means less money for schools, roads, public safety, and other projects that get much of their funding from sales tax collections.

And while officials welcomed the shot in the arm, the extra clunkers money won't come close to filling the gaping holes in their budgets or do much to solve the worst revenue downturn in decades.

During Cash for Clunkers, customers bought nearly 700,000 new vehicles. For government budget offices, that represented some rare good news. Edmunds.com estimated that roughly $18 billion worth of new vehicles were sold under the program. Multiplied by the average combined state and local sales tax of 7.5 percent, the total tax bill amounts to a loose estimate of $1.36 billion.