Sacramento – Sacramento is the latest city to be considering what many call, a “crash tax.” It’s a product of the recession. More and more fire departments are charging out-of-town drivers for cleaning up car crashes.

“We’re not reinventing the wheel, ” said Captain Jonathan Burgess with the Sacramento City Fire Department. “It’s already being done so we are following suit, with the economic climate we may see a lot of departments going this way.”

The Sacramento City Fire Department responds to about 3,600 car accidents a year and charging non-residents a response fee ranging from $400 to $2,200 dollars could bring in a million dollars a year.

“Half the people here are probably non-residents, that’s a lot of money,” said Sacramento resident, Nick Burruel.

It’s a growing business for companies that do the bill collecting. They get a percentage of the money collected from insurance companies and individuals. Some of those companies actually approach fire departments with the idea.

“If you’re crashing here I think you should be part of paying the payroll here,” said Sacramento resident, Wayne Adkins.

But Sacramento resident, David Nelson, disagrees, “don’t we pay taxes for those guys to make enough money to take care of everybody? We pay taxes to have things for us when we need them.”

Tourist, David Carson, found the proposed ordinance offensive, “It doesn’t seem right, we’re all taxpayers. We just spent a thousand dollars here.” Carson and his family are visiting from Kentucky.

A city council committee will take up the “crash tax” tomorrow. Representatives from the insurance industry tell FOX40 News they’ll be there to testify against the “crash tax” because they believe this trend to charge non-residents for accident clean-up will raise everyone’s insurance rates.

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