EUGENE, Ore. — All Oregon workers will see their take-home pay shrink slightly next month.
That’s because a new statewide payroll tax to fund mass transit services kicks in on July 1. Employers will be responsible for automatically deducting the 0.1 percent tax from their workers’ pay. Someone making $60,000 a year will pay $60 a year for the new tax — or $2.31 per biweekly paycheck.
The new tax will pump $110 million a year into the operating budgets of public transportation agencies across Oregon, including Lane Transit.
The payroll tax was included in a massive transportation infrastructure spending package that Oregon lawmakers passed in 2017 with bipartisan support, raising the state gas tax and vehicle fees and imposing a small tax on new car sales.
The new mass transit assessment is the last tax increase to go into effect.
