South Carolina § 12-37-2840 - Road use fees due at the same time as registration fees.

§ 12-37-2840. Road use fees due at the same time as registration fees.

Notwithstanding another provision of law, a motor carrier registering a large commercial motor vehicle or bus must pay to the Department of Motor Vehicles the road use fee due on the vehicle at the time and in the manner the person pays the registration fees on the vehicle pursuant to Section 56-3-660. A person choosing to pay South Carolina registration fees on a large commercial motor vehicle or bus in quarterly installments pursuant to Section 56-3-660 also must pay the road use fee on the vehicle in the same quarterly installments. The Department of Motor Vehicles must make quarterly installment payments available to a customer upon the customer's request provided that each installment payment is made online.

HISTORY: 1996 Act No. 461, SECTION 1; 1997 Act No. 125, SECTION 1D; 1998 Act No. 442, SECTION 12D; 2000 Act No. 399, SECTION 3(T)(2), eff August 17, 2000; 2017 Act No. 40 (H.3516), SECTION 8.A, eff January 1, 2019; 2021 Act No. 37 (H.3689), SECTION 7.A, eff July 1, 2024.

Editor's Note

2017 Act No. 40, SECTIONS 8.L, 8.M, provide as follows:

"L. (1) Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary within this SECTION, a person who registers a vehicle for use in this State pursuant to Article 23, Chapter 37, Title 12, as amended by this act, must register his vehicle during calendar year 2019 and is required to pay the road fees calculated based on the fair market value of the vehicle as specified in Sections 12-37-2820 and 12-37-2850 at the time the vehicle's registration fees are paid.

"(2) Notwithstanding the provisions in Section 12-37-2865(B) and (C), as contained in this SECTION, to the contrary, during calendar year 2019, the first four hundred thousand dollars of fee revenue collected pursuant to Section 12-37-2865 must be retained by the Department of Motor Vehicles to defray programming costs.

"(3) The initial millage required by Section 12-37-2850 must be calculated on or before June 1, 2018.

"M. This SECTION takes effect January 1, 2019, except that the Department of Revenue, in consultation with the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office, shall calculate the millage to be used to calculate the road use fee provided in Section 12-37-2850 by July 1, 2018."

2021 Act No. 37, SECTION 7.B, provides as follows:

"[SECTION 7.]B. This SECTION takes effect on the first day of the fiscal year that begins twenty-four months after the program is fully funded."

The program was fully funded as of July 1, 2022.

Effect of Amendment

2017 Act No. 40, SECTION 8.A, rewrote the section, providing that the road use fee is due at the same time as registration fees.

2021 Act No. 37, SECTION 7.A, in the first sentence, substituted "Notwithstanding another provision of law, a" for "A" and inserted "to the Department of Motor Vehicles"; in the second sentence, substituted "South Carolina registration fees" for "registration fees"; and added the third sentence.