Texas new Used car tax law

[SVORay]

I was born October 1 1974 in a small West Texas oil town. I've always felt like I was blessed to be born in Texas instead of any other state in the union :biggrin: When it comes to state pride I'm very much full of it. That is until I woke up today and found out Texas has a new used car law. Now I'm not sure if any of my Fellow Texan brothers and sister has discusssed this yet but here I go anyways. As some of you know, I just bought an '87 T-type Regal a few weeks ago. I've been dreaming of a T-type/GN every since 1987. This mourning some friends notified me that our beloved state has desided to change how a private car sale is taxed. I'm sure most of us can unstand why they did it but as for how their doing it, that part sux.

It no longers matter what you tell them you bought or sold the car for. They simply look through their blue books and charge you the taxes on what the book value is I guess it depends on what books your looking at as to what they will charge you. The NADA books shows my car to top out around 19k...I paid no where near that for it. I'm going to go postal if I have to pay taxes on a 19k car I don't even own...this car is a VERY long ways from being worth half that amount!! I've looked through their site and nothing on it that I know of excludes me...only 25 year old cars are excluded as for as age goes. Just think, you got out and buy a junk shelled 1990 GT to restore for 100.00 bux. The you go to finnaly register it and the taxes are 300.00 bux because they show it around 5k You will pay 200.00 bux more in taxes than you did buying the car in the first place.


Also, don't think you can simply give the car away. Texas has thought of that one as well, they started some kind of extra tax that should level out the difference compared to buying it privately

For those who care, I've been WAY to busy to even think about titling the car before this happened. Heck, half the time I wasn't even in Texas. I will say, I'm very tempted to register my car outside of Texas...this will really bug me seeing how I'm a very proud Texan and wanted some cool Texas plates for my new ride


Talking about a great Birthday gift

 

[Gary Wells]

Chances are that they may not have a listing for a GN, or turbo Regal, for that matter, so it might get taxed as a plain jane regal. More than likely they will have their own version of tax tables versus vehicle values. Just remember, they do things big in Texas.

 

[SVORay]

Chances are that they may not have a listing for a GN, or turbo Regal, for that matter, so it might get taxed as a plain jane regal. More than likely they will have their own version of tax tables versus vehicle values. Just remember, they do things big in Texas.

I'm praying...I checked out their site and you can enter you vehicle info to get the amount owed. It came up nothing found for my VIN. Well I got the appraisal sheet for my car and it's got two cars on it a GN and T-type from the previous owner. Anyhow, I entered the GN and nothing came up. So who knows, I'm going down first thing tomorrow and seeing if I can get her titled under a typical Regal. Also, just because they don't have it in their system now doesn't mean they want later on. They say they will be updating their listings every month It's a sham in my books. I really feel foir the little man/woman buying the only thing they can aford but paying taxes like it was a new car or close to it.

 

[ChrisCairns]

We had that crap here in WA. But there was/is a loophole....maybe not a loophole but at least a way to "prove" the purchased car wasn't what the books said it was worth.

At first when people started to bitch the government said if you paid less than what their books said you could get a mechanic (???) to check it out and declare why it wasn't worth what their books quoted.

Now, and I don't know if tooooo many people were bitching about their stupidity about involving a mechanic, the seller can sign an affadavit of sorts to say what he rec'd and why it was less than their book value.

When I sold an 86 GN last year to a guy here in WA he phoned me to tell me they wanted tax on $9500. Imagine how surprized the buyer was when they told him that and he'd only paid me $3800.

I filled in the affadavit that $3800 was the true selling price because the car had 210,000 miles and rust on it. (Along the bottom of the doors.) The State accepted it and he only paid tax on the actual sale price.

So check with your DMV and find out if they have something similar.

 

[Quick6'n'-K.C.]

SVORay-
Here in kansas our state did this same thing a few years back, no matter what you paid for the vehicle, they would assess the property tax value on what they thought it was worth... IN all actuality, people were being bent over by the state just as you are about to be done to.

It didnt matter if you purchased a car for 500.00 or 5000.00 if they thought it was worth 24,000 from the blue book, thats what people were FORCED to pay taxes on.

This lasted maybe a year and a half then all is well now, and people can gift a car for 1.00 legally again.

I would contact your local DMV and ask the tax assessment, I thought texas didnt have property tax anyway?

My 87 Limited had a tax value of 900.00 , i didnt registure it for 5 years, and even my back taxes ect was a total of less than 400.00

BW

 

[granatl]

I believe in Nevada, the use the base car value (i.e. a no option Regal). However, you can take the car to the DMV and pay $10 for an on-the-spot appraisal. That's saved me hundreds on another POS I used to own.

 

[SVORay]

I can't believe you can owe back taxes on a car l but I'm sure your right. Anyhow, I haven't read over the whole web site yet but someone told me you can gift the car but they've changed or added some kind of tax to it in order to make up the difference from simply paying the straight used car Tax.

Also, they mention you're able to have the car apraised and what we'll probaly have to do. My car was already done but about 12 years ago but it's only worth about 70% of that amount these days. I'm going down there tomorrow and seeing what I can find out. If they want to rip me a new one, I'll go have it apraised again, this time the bumper fillers are shot and so is the transmession. Oh, and it's got an electrical short. I'm sure I can add a few more things to it before the machanic sees it lol

Edited: well it's late and I got bored after typing this post. Anyhow I found a small loop hole for my self. This doesn't effect cars bought/sold before October 1, 2006 and my title transfer sheet wasn't dated. So I got like 15-20 days to getter done. I'm still doing it tomorrow to make sure and this new law still sux ass. It really hurts the unfurtunate people more than anything. I can just see some person gettinga good deal on some 15 year old truck for 500.00 bux and then having to pay an aditional 500.00 on taxes :frown:

 

[CPAKCP]

Nothing more then a tax increase.

 

[TurboDave]

I can't believe you can owe back taxes on a car l but I'm sure your right. Anyhow, I haven't read over the whole web site yet but someone told me you can gift the car but they've changed or added some kind of tax to it in order to make up the difference from simply paying the straight used car Tax.

Also, they mention you're able to have the car apraised and what we'll probaly have to do. My car was already done but about 12 years ago but it's only worth about 70% of that amount these days. I'm going down there tomorrow and seeing what I can find out. If they want to rip me a new one, I'll go have it apraised again, this time the bumper fillers are shot and so is the transmession. Oh, and it's got an electrical short. I'm sure I can add a few more things to it before the machanic sees it lol

Edited: well it's late and I got bored after typing this post. Anyhow I found a small loop hole for my self. This doesn't effect cars bought/sold before October 1, 2006 and my title transfer sheet wasn't dated. So I got like 15-20 days to getter done. I'm still doing it tomorrow to make sure and this new law still sux ass. It really hurts the unfurtunate people more than anything. I can just see some person gettinga good deal on some 15 year old truck for 500.00 bux and then having to pay an aditional 500.00 on taxes :frown:

Fear not, you could be living in VA, and paying personal property taxes on your vehicle to the tune of hundreds of dollars, everytime registration time comes around.

Suffered through that for over 15 years before deciding state loyalty just wasn't worth it.

I was never so glad to leave a state back when I did.

 

[justabuickv6]

Grand National and T Type is in NADA.

Grand National is listed in KBB

 

[justabuickv6]

Grand National and T Type is in NADA. $13,575 for Average Retail

Grand National is listed in KBB. $16,385 for fair condition.

 

[turbofish38]

Back when I lived in Nebraska they taxed your personal property which included anything that need a license plate. Now when it came time to pay the tax and buy new plates on the GN it was taxed as a Regal. The state didn't care what upscale model it was. I think? My 86 was titled as a Regal T-Type Grand National and I'm thinking they stopped after Regal. I dont recall what the 87 guys did or what problems they had. The system was backwards in a way. A guy I used to work with bought a 57 Nomad for about $15K. They had it valued at the minimum of $400! IIRC that was the law as they didn't use any collector value guides.If the car wasn't listed in their books than it was worth $400. Somewhere around 97 or 98 they passed a law that made 12 YO and older cars exempt so all you had to do was pay the $20-$25 plate fee. The tax was only about 2% to 3% depending on where you lived. I never had a problem filing bogus dollar amounts on the tax forms when I plated a car. My first Riviera T-Type was a $50 car even though it was in the books at around $6K when I bought it.I just took it in the shorts the next year when I had to re-plate it. It was standard operating procedure that every private owner did. You couldn't get away with it if you had a dealers license. The state and the IRS were pretty good at checking the books. You can always move to FL. We dont pay taxes. Just a first time transfer fee($200 average) and you have to buy your plates every year.

 

[madhat]

thank god I got the BMW registered before that took effect...$1 sale price baby!