Buying out of state.

If I plan to buy out of state, can a dealer register me and have me pay my home state taxes through that certain dealership? That way all I gotta do is drive it back and now have to worry about registering or paying the differences of taxes in my home state. Thanks in advance.

 

I live in Montana and bought a RAV4 for the dear wifey in Utah. No problems..No sales tax in Montana though!

 

Yeah I live in CA so I just make sure I do everything right before I start calling dealerships up and start throwing offers!

 

You pay the taxes when you register the vehicle in your home state.

 

That's a great question!. I purchased my trailer in Arizona and payed Arizona taxes. Then took it back to Nevada and didn't have to pay anymore. I remember the dmv person telling me that I would of had to pay the difference if it was lower than Arizona.. Hope that makes sense..

 

Depends entirely on the 2 states.

DO NOT count on a dealer to understand this either,guess how I know?

 

I did this. Bought in AL where I work. Had to register in AL where I live. Took 7 months but I bought I the beginning of Covid and SC is very difficult for out of state dealers.

 

You can do either. Just try to get the correct tax amount for them, it varies by county. If you pay tax through financing though you will be paying interest on that tax amount.

 

Depends on your state and the state you buy in, and the dealer itself.

For instance - it is common for WA residents to buy vehicles in Portland, OR, but when we do so we only pay the vehicle price (no sales tax in OR) and they issue us an Oregon “trip permit” (good for like 60 days) to give us time to go to our DMV and register the vehicle, at which time we also pay the “Use tax” (sales tax after we already bought it).

I’m not 100% certain how WA dealer do it for OR - if they are able to absentee register or not... I’ve only ever done it the other way.

When my Dad (from MT) bought a used SUV about six years ago here in WA, the dealer wasn’t able to do absentee registration in MT for him (that may be different now, or it might just be that WA and MT don’t set that up because they don’t border each other). So the only thing they could do was give him a 72-hour WA trip permit (max WA will issue for out of state, while the in-state temporary registration is 60-days) and he had to drive back to MT and register the car in person (they actually gave him three of them because he was starting a full week, but he had to keep going back to the dealer to get a new one issued).

I would ask the dealer those specific questions when you call, but I’d be willing to bet that you’ll likely only get that option if it’s a dealer in a state that borders yours AND they are located semi-close to your state, and the states are set up to be able to do that.

 

Like others said - depends on the dealer. I bought 2 cars recently out of state, I live in.VA - my 2019 new from a dealer in MD and recently a car from a dealer in NC. Both dealers processed all the paper work including tax, title and registration for VA. No visits to the DMV required super smooth. They gave me temporary tags local to their states but my permanent registration and plates came in the mail shortly after.

I did have to get current state inspections but that’s easy.

Call your dealer they should be able to give you the info you need but it’s certainly possible.

 

Bought a vehicle from VA, WI, and KY. Sent me off with a temp plate and just paid sales tax for my state at the town office when I registered them.
Make sure the dealer doesnt double dip and charge you for their states tax as well. VA dealer did and it took me a month to get a refund after an in-person visit to them, KY dealer tried to cram an extra $800 in on the bill of sale but I caught it and made them change it this time.

 

Several have said that it depends on the dealer, and it depends on the two states. I live in Alabama and bought my truck in Georgia. The dealer tried to calculate the correct taxes, but I paid more when I went to get my tag. Then, a couple of weeks later, I got a refund check for a few hundred dollars from the dealer from the miscalculated taxes. I have no idea if I paid the right amount, but nobody has bothered me about it since June.

 

Time to get on a plane to Montana .... Ohio loves their government

 

If all else fails and somehow you end up paying double taxes you should be able to rectify through your state treasurer or even at tax time. I know it’s a royal PITA but you can fix it it, it just may take some time.

 

Haha. I was just saying to myself out loud as I was reading, wow that sounds like a pain in the ass.

 

Like I already said it depends entirely on the states really.

Sure there is a chance that you can leave it to a dealer to do but why would anyone imagine that they are any better at this than any of the other many things they just make up as they go and end up being known deservedly as the Stealer?!

I have good friends who are F&I guys at Dealers and they literally have no clue whatsoever about any state except the one they are in.

In Montana where a lot of guys have already talked about dealing they have online agents that will take care of everything for you about this and last year when I picked up a new Sequoia for a client that had just bought some Montana property and drove it out there I actually had to go to the tiny ghost town that is the county seat for his place in person and do the deal there?

The misinformation that the Indiana dealer had given me about Montana registration was amazing.

When I bought recently in Illinois to license in Missouri the dealer wanted badly to do the tax thing for me and collect it themselves. I know they are full of crap and it is not required in Missouri that the Illinois dealer collect taxes but I had to threaten to back out of the deal entirely unless they let me do it my way and the way that I know it had to be done.

All I know for sure is that you can get a Temp Tag where you buy the car and drive it home and just pay the taxes and registration there where it will be licensed in the end anyway.

You can pretty much always do that and I can not imagine why anyone would trust the dealer to get this right anyway?

 

NOT POLITICAL!!! But in the past 20-30 years twice idiots ran for governor and suggested a Sales tax? Both lost BAD! Yeah it’s nice not having a sales tax! And it will stay that way!

 

I live in CA and bought my used Tundra and had it shipped to me from a dealership in AZ, this all happened right at the outset of the COVID lockdowns. Less than a year prior, I’d purchased a different used car from a dealership in VA and had it shipped to CA. VA couldn’t help with registration, but the dealership in AZ took care of everything (tremendously convenient, since our DMVs were all shuttered).

I believe I signed an affidavit confirming my city/county of residence, I paid CA taxes and fees to the dealer, and received a CA pink and plates.

I do believe it has to do with the state...perhaps bordering states have DMV agreements in place - or maybe it was necessitated by COVID.

Where I think you might run into problems is:
1. Getting a valid weigh-master certificate - I believe this has to be done in CA.
2. Getting a valid/official inspection - I went to a non-DMV inspection service that performed this for me.
3. Getting a valid smog - the inspection service did my smog at the same time.

These were all things my dealership needed to execute the paperwork with the CA-DMV. So, in your case, maybe you get the truck and drive it home on a 90 day temp tag (or 60 or whatever it was), then collect items 1, 2 and 3 and send them back to the dealer to finish the registration, if that’s a service they’re willing to offer.

 

Add to that the fact that Montana is unique among no sales tax states and there is a huge business setting up LLC's in Montana just so people can "Shelter" there if they want to.

Look it up there are business's that for a flat fee will do this and get you ready to go as a Montana Resident for this purpose.

It is kind of amazing really and pretty confusing to me too but for those with the Cheddar it is a real advantage evidently.

 

Interesting thread. I live in mn and just put a down-payment on a truck in Fargo. Hopefully things go smoothly