Tractor-trailer drivers faced with having to pay sales taxes on their rigs are working to generate public support for an end to a policy that some say could cost them their livelihoods.

Many Arkansas truckers register out of state because it's less expensive. A ruling in Oklahoma -- where many big rigs from Arkansas are registered -- now requires trucking firms to have a physical office in that state to register trucks there. Now, truckers in Arkansas are faced with having to pay sales taxes to register their trucks, a tax that is retroactive for three years.
To protest the Arkansas tax, about two dozen tractor-trailers drove in a convoy Saturday from Brinkley to Stuttgart. A month earlier, about 50 truckers drove their rigs across 18 miles of U.S. 63 in Lawrence County in a similar protest.
If an Arkansas truck driver licenses a $30,000 tractor-trailer in Oklahoma, for instance, that person pays a $10 excise tax and nominal licensing fees, but no sales taxes. In Arkansas, the cost would be more than $1,500 in sales taxes, plus registration fees. About 90% of Arkansas' 1,200 for-hire motor carriers register out of state, according to the Arkansas Trucking Assn.
The truckers may get help from the Legislature, which goes into session in January. Rep. Don House, D-Walnut Ridge, who is vice chairman of the House
Transportation Committee, said he plans to introduce a bill that would end the state sales tax on big rigs. He said the prohibitive tax prevents the state from collecting fees that truckers registered in the state would otherwise have to pay.
"We've neglected these people for too long," House said, in an address to truckers in Stuttgart on Saturday. "We're disenfranchising these local and state truckers."
House said his bill would raise other fees, such as truck registration and tag licensing costs, to offset losses if the tax is repealed.
The state is considering sales-tax payment plans for truckers on a case-by-case basis, said Tim Leathers, deputy director of the state's Department of Finance and Administration.
"All we do is collect the tax," Leathers said. "We're not trying to put anyone out of business."