D.C. Mayor Proposes Tax Increase on Ride-Hailing to Fund Transit

"The District would raise taxes on sales, commercial property and ride-hailing services such as Lyft and Uber to increase funding for Metro under the 2019 budget Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) proposed," The Washington Post reports.

Together, the taxes would raise about $80 million toward the $178.5 million that D.C. has committed to Metro as part of a joint plan with Maryland and Virginia to improve the regional transit system. They break down as follows, per the Post:

The commercial property tax rate would increase 2 cents from $1.85 per $100 of assessed value.

The sales tax would rise from 5.75 percent to 6 percent, smaller than the regional 1 percentage point sales tax increase that District leaders proposed as a permanent Metro funding source. The restaurant and hotels tax would also rise by a quarter- percentage point.

And the tax on gross receipts on "for-hire" vehicle services, passed onto customers as city fees on trips, would rise from 1 percent to 4.75 percent. That would mean a dime charge on a $10 trip would become a 47-cent charge.

Bowser's budget would also invest another $100 million in the District's beleaguered Housing Production Trust Fund, provide $6 million in relief for low-income residents' water bills, and allocate $10.9 million to complete the demolition of the "notorious" D.C. General Hospital homeless shelter, the Post reports.