Tax for Florida CarShare Customers Cut in Half

TALLAHASSEE, FL -- Feb. 19, 2015: Car-sharing customers in Florida are now paying a $1 per-use tax – half the rate paid in 2014.

Enterprise Holdings – owner and operator of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands – opposes all discriminatory excise taxes that target car-rental and car-sharing customers. However, the company also believes this pro-rated tax is both equitable and fair since most car-sharing transactions cover less than 24 hours at a time.

Under Florida's new legislation, effective Jan. 1, all Florida car-sharing customers are being charged a $1 per-use surcharge, versus the previous $2 surcharge.

"We have supported this tax cut all along because it's a step in the right direction," said Ryan Johnson, vice president of Enterprise CarShare, Enterprise Rideshare and Zimride by Enterprise. "It also helps draw attention to unfair taxes that single out local as well as out-of-town car rental customers. This is a small victory for consumers, but an important one. In Florida and elsewhere, we'll continue to advocate for our customers on this issue, whether they rent for an hour, a day, a week or longer."

Enterprise Holdings has a long record of speaking up for consumers on issues that affect the car rental and travel industries. In 2009, for instance, Enterprise spoke out against Florida legislation seeking to raise the daily surcharge to $4 per day. A year later, Enterprise Holdings testified in support of the "End Discriminatory State Taxes for Automobile Renters Act" (H.R. 4175) before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law.

Today, Enterprise supports the Curb Auto Rental Taxes (CART) Coalition, which opposes excise taxes that unfairly target car-rental and car-sharing customers to fund unrelated programs and projects. CART is comprised of some of America's leading companies, policy organizations, labor and consumer advocate groups, including the American Society of Travel Agents, Americans for Tax Reform, National Urban League, the United Auto Workers, Property Casualty Insurers Association of America and National Consumers League.

The Enterprise CarShare program is a natural extension of the extensive Enterprise Rent-A-Car network, which has more than 5,500 fully staffed offices – 50 percent more than its nearest U.S. competitor. These convenient and accessible offices not only are located within 15 miles of 90 percent of the U.S. population, but also reflect the company's longtime focus on offering sustainable local transportation options, including vanpooling.

In fact, Enterprise has been delivering local transportation alternatives since 1957. Forty years later, it trademarked the term Virtual CarŪ after recognizing the long-term impact of such a sustainable neighborhood-based business model. Enterprise CarShare is now available in more than 35 U.S. states, Canada and the U.K., on nearly 100 university campuses, 40 dedicated government and business programs and hundreds of business accounts across the country.

Over the past year alone, Enterprise CarShare's membership has increased by almost 100 percent and has launched more than 30 new programs in North America. As a result, Johnson was not surprised when venture capitalist Fred Wilson publicly noted that: "(In 2014) … the 'sharing economy' was outed as the 'rental economy.'"

"We certainly don't expect local car-sharing services to be taxed differently than local car-rental, but we do we expect such transportation services to be taxed fairly," Johnson stressed. "Florida's approach to taxing car-sharing customers on a per-use basis rather than per-day is a great example of common-sense public policy. We hope this new tax application sets a standard elsewhere in order to reduce unfair tax burdens on our hourly car rental customers."

For more information about car-rental and car-sharing excise taxes, visit Curb Auto Rental Tax .