Tax???

how much am i looking at for sales tax on my 97 miata, i live in the socialist commonwealth of massachusetts and we have a 5% sales tax here, im thinking 200??

5 is not bad.. we have 7% down here in NJ..

Not sure how they do it up there though. I know here they either get your % for a mimimum your car is worth or what you actually bought it for.. which ever is higher

i think they go on average book value... which sucks cause i bought it for less than average book.

hmmm, one equation with two unknowns. can't solve it.

if you're asking how much is five percent of something, you have to tell us what that something is.

if you're paying $4k for the car, then yes, 5% of $4k is $200.

Out here in hick country we pay tax based on purchase price of car. Regardless of what value was.

I made the mistake of pulling up in my newly buffed, waxed, etc Celica when i first got it right by the window in plain sight when i went to register it.

"You paid $600 for that?"

"Yes i did."

"You paid $600 for that?!?!"

"Uh. Yes. That's what it says on the title."

$42 in tax later, i was out the door.

93celicaGT2 wrote: Out here in hick country we pay tax based on purchase price of car. Regardless of what value was.

Same in PA (even in the urban, non-hick areas... ). As long as the seller doesn't do something annoying - like fill in the sale price on the title - the tag agent doesn't give a crap and you can tell them jsut about anything, within reason (don't say you paid $200 for a nearly new BMW, for instance). He's just a middle-man and gets no percentage of the sales tax.

Doesn't MA have another nick-name? "Tax-a-chussetts"

Here in SC they look at book value, but you can aruge that down based on price paid or miles or condition.

I am facing a doozy

1997 cobra, when first purchased my mom held the title, in 2004-5 the title was transferred into my name (i had paid off the loan for the car and it was fully mine) title is still in Ohio, and I moved to MD awhile back

purchase price in 2002, $17,000

value that we put down that changed hands when we transferred title to me, $1,000 (actual payment was over $17k, but we didnt put it on the paperwork)

bluebook is $10,000 currently...

MD has a 6% excise tax..

gonna hurt this college student to get the title transferred to MD and get it registered.

lets see, gotta put the stock H back on, remove tint, get inspected, might need new tires (they probly wont like my old azenis)

and then probly pay either $1000 or $600 ish in taxes.

suckage!

MA goes by some sort of book value, though I'm not sure which one. I want to say KBB, because their prices are often higher than other sources. Best advice I can give you is to find the highest KBB/NADA/etc. value for your car, and assume MA will tax you for that value.

I bought my RX-7 for $1300. MA valued it for $2400 and taxed me on that. I don't even think I've sunk $1100 into it yet!

ignorant wrote: Here in SC they look at book value, but you can aruge that down based on price paid or miles or condition.

Last time I looked, sales tax in SC maxed out at $300.

texas uses some kind of value, although i don't think the say what it is, you can go and put your y/m/m in online and it'll tell you what your car is worth for tax purposes. they don't care if its a roller or shell you paid $100 for either. also the values on older cars seem to be over by around 10% on average. how convenient

Ian F wrote: Same in PA (even in the urban, non-hick areas... ). As long as the seller doesn't do something annoying - like fill in the sale price on the title - the tag agent doesn't give a crap and you can tell them jsut about anything, within reason (don't say you paid $200 for a nearly new BMW, for instance). He's just a middle-man and gets no percentage of the sales tax.

Relatively recent PA experience:

It apparently depends on how big a prick the tag agency wants to be...I sold a '86 GMC work van to a couple and we agreed on $600 (high milage, sliding door kinda wonky, etc) We went to AAA to do the tags and we told them the price was $600. Well, the clerk didn't want to believe it. She insisted the book value on the truck was approx $4200 and wanted to charge the lady 6% of that figure. I got a tad argumentative and challenged her to find any 1986 GMC van that was anywhere close to that figure. Apparently the state told them to challenge purchase prices. My rejoinder was that it's 6% of the PURCHASE price, not 6% of what someone else thinks it should be. We won the arguement by telling them it is high milage, etc. I told the lady to take the van down to Barret Jackson if it's worth that much. The clerk didn't really appreciate that.

A couple months later I found my $100 325ix and got almost the same resistance (different tag place) but had a photocopy of the money order and told them it had a blown engine ( it did)...

Although I understand that VA is the motherberkeleyer of all...every year you essentially buy your car again...