Rich Car Guy Problems: Montana License Plate Tax Dodge Crackdown

[G.Irish]

You get taxed on just about everything you buy though.  You don't get bent out of shape when you pay 10 cents tax on a candy bar because you can easily afford a candy bar.  If you've got enough money to afford a Chiron (the Veyron is ugly), you have enough money to pay the tax.  $200k is a lot of money but when you're worth 8 or 9 figures it's not that much money relative to your net worth.

And if you sell your candy bar to your buddy,  he doesn't pay tax on it.  (Unless you buy it as a re-seller, which then you dont pay tax)
And if you keep your candy bar for a year,  you dont pay more tax on it.  (And if you did,  the percentage of that tax would not go up if you had a godiva candy bar)

Yeah the tax every time vehicles trade hands thing is a pain but it's that way because car and house transactions have a lot of red tape association with them.  I bet if the state could track and tax my sweets and baked goods purchases more accurately they probably would tax them more.  

Car tax is pretty much the same rate no matter how expensive your candy bar is though.  There are only a couple of exceptions I think.  Some VA counties don't charge for antiques IIRC.  So buy that F40 and you're golden.

I would hope that a car enthusiast of all people would understand that "ordinary" people who love cars should be able to save their pennies and splurge on an expensive car without being labelled "rich" and overtaxed.  
Every year in October I want to sell my Lotus due to the tax bill and its not even worth all that much.

I don't begrudge anyone who wants to save their money and buy their dream car.  But if you're making that purchase you should factor in the cost of the tax on that purchase.  If you're out there clumsily setting up a shell company in another state to avoid that tax you should do so knowing the risk that you'll get caught and be forced to pay.  And that you could potentially face jail time.

I hate the annual car tax too but I just factor it into the cost of ownership.  Same way I looked at mortgage payments before buying houses.

warning:  tangent ahead
And thats before we even get into the fact that 40% of the planet doesnt even have clean water to drink.  Almost every single American is RICH in a human perspective.  This "tax the rich" attitude is just a populist excuse to steal people's money out of greed and jealousy.

It's not a progressive tax though, it's a flat sales and usage tax.  It's not a "tax the rich" situation, it's a pay-your-tax-like-everyone-else-without-using-a-sketchy-loophole situation.  Had those guys used the hotrod E30 or the "kit car" loophole they'd be fine.[/quote]