A tax is imposed upon the registrants, owners and operators for the use of the highways of this state by all motor vehicles having a declared gross weight or gross vehicle weight in excess of twenty-six thousand pounds and registered in this state, registered under proportional registration or qualified under the provisions of Sections 65-1-32 and 65-1-33 NMSA 1978. This tax shall be known as the "weight distance tax".

History: 1978 Comp., § 7-15A-3, enacted by Laws 1988, ch. 73, § 30.

Effective dates. — Laws 1988, ch. 73, § 58 made Laws 1988, ch. 73, § 30 effective July 1, 1988.

Burden of proof. — Where the taxpayer engaged in the intra-state hauling of construction materials; the taxpayer calculated the mileage traveled by taxpayer's trucks based on the amount of fuel purchased as shown on fuel receipts multiplied by the industry average of five miles per gallon, the department's auditor decided that the taxpayer's records were unreliable and used an alternative methodology to calculate mileage; based on the taxpayer's evidence, a hearing officer found that the taxpayer's fuel records were reliable and were not controverted by the department's evidence; and the hearing officer concluded that the taxpayer had overcome the presumption of the correctness of the department's assessment and that the department had failed to meet its burden to prove the correctness of its assessment, the hearing officer correctly determined that the burden had shifted to the department to prove the correctness of its assessment. N.M. Taxation & Revenue Dep't v. Casias Trucking, 2014-NMCA-099.