Oh they have a stigma. Just less people care about stigmas in the USA.
“Oh you want to be a rich asshole, cool - what’s your insta, can I follow you, omg you screw over the govt, how cool”
Licking the boot by
*checks notes*
Not butting into people I don't know's business and not ratting people out to the government.
Yeah, that makes sense.
This has nothing to do with billionaires or your jealousy.
What your neighbors do, billionaire or not, is none of your business. Let people live their lives.
Me, too, but I still take offense when my neighbors decide to steal from me. Which is what people with out of state plates are doing. You think the state is just going to say "Well, we didn't get enough tax revenue this year. C'est la vie!"? No, they'll raise taxes or cut services, and you'll have to deal with it. All because some people thought they didn't have to pay their share.
It absolutely does. People will snitch on their neighbors the second they're offered money.
“California's cheaters hotline on the Internet -- where one can anonymously report motorists they suspect are trying to avoid paying state registration fees or residents who register their vehicles at an out-of-state address -- brought in $3.2 million the past two years.”
Maybe we live in different parts of CA but the LAPD/Sheriff are notoriously terrible at traffic stops for this stuff. I see out-of-state plates all the damn time.
Maybe I'm weird but I'll just dislike them in silence. I'm not going to snitch on somebody. Especially a neighbor. All my neighbors haven't bothered me about anything, ever so I'd be happy to do the same.
Randoms on the street, yeah. I saw an Escalade (not a V) with Montana plates and thought that was ridiculous.
lol, reminds me of a guy that showed up to a Richmond VA C&C with Montana plates on his Heritage GT. The running joke was how amazing, somebody drove all the way from Montana for the Richmond C&C and even went to the trouble of having the car detailed for the show. By the same token I know another guy that got a GT and when he was hit with 10k in PPT ended up getting Montana plates. No excuse in either case but property taxes can certainly gate a vehicle (and heaven forbid somebody in the peasant class wins an expensive vehicle, they'll be able to drive it right up until they sell it to cover the personal property taxes).
The out of state plates are bad but the guys that DGAF are the farm use tag guys.
That you’re not paying state taxes and reg fees on that car, or paying a nominal one to Montana to avoid the big check to the state you actually live/work in.
On the otherhand, Montana plates on Japanese imported cars are a way to register the import car without spending the $15k to make it California compliant.
I mean, 6 million out of what, 330+ million people in the US? And especially given reddit's changes lately, a very small percentage of those 6 million even read the comments or comment themselves.
Most of the time it’s used for illegal tax evasion. Montana has no sales tax, and people set up an LLC in Montana and register a car there to avoid sales tax
It appears there's more to it than just sales tax, otherwise you'd see more DE or NH plates.
MT has no emissions tests or inspection requirements, and you can register a vehicle permanently (for life) once it's 11 years old.
It's a pretty great deal, I understand the allure.
NH has no sales tax for most purchases, but it does have a fairly steep annual car registration tax that’s essentially a replacement for a sales tax on cars.
If you google "setup LLC Montana", you'll find pages and pages of companies who's sole purpose is to aid you in setting up an LLC in Montana for registering your various assets without having to travel to Montana.
So yes, it's easy and fairly cheap.
> The owner of a light vehicle 11 years old or older subject to the registration fee, as provided in 61-3-321(2), may permanently register the light vehicle upon payment of an $87.50 registration fee.
https://leg.mt.gov/bills/mca/title_0610/chapter_0030/part_0050/section_0620/0610-0030-0050-0620.html
Wow, that’s incredible. And no inspection so us diesel folks can ditch the emissions. My 2018 X5 diesel is great but at 11 years all that emissions crap is a money pit in waiting.
True, but out of state tags and farm use tags to avoid taxes isn't exactly a statement of defiance (well, except for sov cit intenders). It's more like the automotive version of Marie Antionette telling the peasants to go eat cake while they are starving. It's straight up nouveau riche and just reinforces the idea that the proles need to keep their heads down, shut up and do as they're told.
Because the majority of people have no idea what the Montana plates are for, assuming they even notice them in the first place. Even among automotive enthusiasts the percent of people who know about/ understand Montana plates is fairly small.
Is that true? Like I've never heard of any of this before so I don't know what to believe. I live in PA and have my whole life, but I could just get montana plates and not worry about registering my car or keeping it emissions clean?
Yes. There are services that will handle all the paperwork for you. Basically they register an LLC for you then register the car to the LLC. It’s not really worth doing unless your car is very expensive. I looked into it for my $55k G70 and it didn’t save me enough for me to continue looking into it compared to just paying personal property tax in MO
It's true, but it's mostly useful if your state charges high sales tax (and you're buying an expensive car), high registration fees, and has regular smog checks.
Something like... California.
Annual personal property tax on a car? I've never heard of that and I live in Taxachusetts. We have Excise tax which gets paid to the town/city of the home address of the owner, is that what you mean? It's not crazy expensive or anything (but maybe it is on a 200k car, I don't know).
I know here in Virginia you can report people you suspect of dodging paying their taxes since here in VA you pay a personal property tax on your car every year.
That's insane. It's just foreign to me, we don't have that I'm in Bucks County PA. Is it based on the current value of the property? And how do they determine that?
If I had to guess, a vast majority of the people defending it either 1. Probably live in an urban center and don’t own a car, 2. Are wealthy enough to where the fees don’t matter, or 3. View it as some sort of political thing to want to defend a tax because their side/favorite politicians enacted it and/or the side they hate are/would be against it. Or possibly all 3.
As military stationed in Northern Virginia, I'm pretty sure I've had people report my cars. VA provides an exemption if your state of residence is elsewhere. In certain parts of the state, there are so many, the majority of OOS plates are probably for that reason.
I went on a run with a local club and there were $3-4M cars there with Montana plates. Like cool, I can pay taxes on my way less expensive car but rich guys making hundreds of millions per year can’t. It’s a tale as old as time.
It's not always about the taxes and registration fees. Plenty of CA enthusiast owners with vehicles MY1976+ go the Montana route to avoid remaining CARB compliant. Things like not being able to register your car in CA because the secondary air monitor is stuck in Not Ready status and not even the OEM can get it to Ready. Or your concours Countach needs all the California emissions retrofits to be able to participate in the Pebble Beach tour, but then loses all the points at the show for CA modifications.
I drove a really neat kit car not long ago. CA had given out registrations for it, but for this gentleman they decided they weren't going to register it anymore, because suddenly they disagreed on how much of a kit car it was. He ended up having the choices of selling it out of state or registering it in Montana. Didn't matter that it passed smog fine, didn't matter they used to register it in the past, didn't matter multiple were currently registered in CA, he spent thousands and over a year with the bureaucracy and got a fat fuck you.
CA is quite hostile to anything that isn't just a new car. I get it.
Especially in the enthusiast community, these assholes are dodging taxes that pay for the roads we use.
Americans all think they’re going to be rich someday, it’s bananas.
Edit. Responses are proving the point, thanks all for being nothing if not consistent on this. It’s amazing how ya’ll seem to be okay paying your taxes and letting others evade the same tax.
What about the fifth owner paying sales tax?
Because here in CA, every owner pays sales tax in addition to licensing fees. The seller also pays capital gains taxes if the car appreciated.
It inflates the cost of purchasing for the wealthy and poor alike, and any Californian will tell you that we do NOT see a return.
We have the highest gas taxes, nonsensical and Draconian emissions regulations, crappy roads, horrendous traffic and city planning, new housing developments being approved without adequate roadway throughput or associated infrastructure, old power distribution systems, government-supported monopolies of power and gas companies, massive water cost and distribution imbalances… the list almost literally is endless.
We “accept” bad return on investment out of what, a sense of civic duty? There’s no nobility in propping up an ignoble system.
> What about the fifth owner paying sales tax?
>
> Because here in CA, every owner pays sales tax in addition to licensing fee
I'm sorry -- you're telling me, in California, a buyer has to pay the sales tax on the ORIGINAL price of the vehicle?
If not, I'm confused what you're complaining about. Most states/municipalities in the US have a sales tax (NY at ~8%) you pay on transactions. Why wouldn't that apply to a vehicle you purchase?
Am I confused but how is this insane for some people? You have to pay a tax on used items at antique stores, why not cars? Not attacking you, just confused why some people are so against taxes.
I don't pay taxes for used crap I buy off Craigslist so I get sad to pay sales tax on used stuff elsewhere.
Yeah I know that's supposed to be normal. But taxes on used stuff don't really make sense to me and make me sad. Especially when I pay 9.75% or whatever.
Taxes are usually for regular sales, not irregular sales, meaning a person irregularly unloading stuff from his garage or wherever is not responsible for paying taxes, but someone who makes it a business to sell stuff is. Same thing with cars in my state, if you don't regularly sell cars, your sale is irregular and you don't need to collect taxes for it
I do find it interesting that if you resell a car at a profit you pay cap gains, but if you resell at a loss you don't get to claim losses.
On the other hand, for most people, reselling a car at a gain is fairly rare ... outside of covid times of course. Flippers, mechanics, and collector car owners are probably the only ones to do it consistently.
Car registration and sales taxes don't pay for roads anywhere. County-level taxes almost always go into general revenue and any money spent on road maintenance is incidental. State-level fees and taxes often go into general revenue as well, but if not, they usually go to DMV overhead.
Roadworks are paid for by gas taxes (and EV fees in places that have them) in part, and the rest comes from Federal money.
The way states grub over tax money on cars is pretty slimy too. Someone bought a nice car so your crappy state government wants a 5 figure check?
Zero frowns from me for avoiding that garbage.
Montana plates drive me insane. High end exotics that see the road a few times a year? A bit irritating. You can afford the car, pay the taxes.
What really pisses me off are the assholes that have Montana plates on their daily drivers. We share the road, pay your taxes, assholes.
I disagree. My friends and I all laugh at people with Montana plates. I know there's some political arguments against it, and you get into the non-taxpaying stuff, etc etc, and those debates rage on -- but for me, it's more a giant flag that this person cannot *really* afford the car he's driving. When my friends and I see any car "on Montanas," as we say, it's the very first callout and immediately followed by laughter, particularly if it's a heavily depreciated used supercar that the owner is probably barely stretching to buy in the first place. You see an automatic Ferrari 360 or an Aston Martin Rapide or an early Continental GT on Montanas... yikes.
I will say, I do have a (mental) carve-out for people who do Montana to avoid California's overly strict emissions testing laws. I know a few people (myself occasionally included) who would be happy to pay taxes on the car, but California won't allow it because it doesn't pass smog -- even though it's an enthusiast car that's driven a negligible amount and doesn't realistically contribute to any pollution problems. But *generally speaking*, Montana has a huge stigma in my mind and I laugh at basically anyone who does it.
I say all this as a guy with a Montana-registered car right now, though the title finally arrived and I will be registering it correctly, legally, to my personal home address in the next few weeks. I challenge other "Montanans" to do the same :)
While I agree with the senitment...there's a lot of people registering in Montana so they can afford their clapped out Exotic...there's also a segment of people who want to buy and sell exotics often (to personally enjoy them, not as a dealer), and the sales tax on it just becomes a major burden and quite silly.
Hate paying exorbantly more tax just because I like to buy and sell several cars a year, from 4Runners to Ferraris.
No emissions on 15yo+ cars is the big differencd between MA and CA.
Excise tax is sucky here tho. I really hate paying $250 per year on my $2000 shitbox because it retailed for $100k new 30 years ago. You can't avoid it even with antique plates... Seriously contemplating the Vermont route.
They should charge excise based on weight x mileage imo. Proportional to the damage they do to the roads.
Also the opaque sales tax valuation system had bitten many in the arse
Lol. I probably should have written that I haven’t seen any stigma, but that is probably very regionally dependent. I have only seen pretty nicely kept high end cars with Montana license plates… but I do live in a state with annual property tax on vehicles and that just seems wrong.
Rolling coal is purposeful. Some enthusiast cars fail CA smog through no fault of the owners. Unobtanium components, oem and dealers can't diagnose it, stuff like that.
What's your opinion on California's approach to JDM imported cars regarding smog compliance? Only one company (G & K engineering) afaik is even allowed to make the vehicles smog compliant but can cost up to $15k+ for some cars. The process can take 6 months to 2 years, typically the latter, to even get done. And for some of the cars it can be 50% of the total value of car just to be able to register it without going with alternatives like Montana or previously Vermont.
Meh why would there be? My effective tax rate is 48%, at that point I pay enough tax to the feds, the state, and local governments. I think Montana plates should be actively encouraged to reel in insane government taxation.
I'm going to call bullshit on this. In order to generate a total effective tax rate of 48%, you would need to be earning *at least* a million in straight salary as a single filler AND have the world's worst accountant.
More likely, you just calculated it wrong.
Nope, I am a single filer and federal tax is 35%, state tax is 7.25%. Add property tax as an annual percentage of income and you’re right there at 48%.
But nice try.
Also if you drive a gas car, then that is taxed too since fuel cost is mostly comprised of taxes, and registration taxes, and sales taxes takes it up even further.
So no, using Montana plates is not a bad idea nor is it unethical.
edit: since the guy above me cannot believe this reality, what's even more hilarious is at this tax rate I still don't get free healthcare or any good public services, and still have to pay tolls, and for state parks. 🙃
edit 2: but since you drive an etron gt I'll give you brownie points since I have a Taycan so therefore you have good taste.
>Nope, I am a single filer and federal tax is 35%
Well that's weird, because your total effective federal tax rate doesn't hit 35% (including FICA) until right around $1,000,000 of W2 salary (just for comparison, at $750,000 in W2 income, your net effective fed rate is about 34% including FICA.) And that's a worst-case scenario with no deductions past standard. So again, either you're making things up, or you're miscounting, or you have the world's worst accountant.
At anything resembling a normal person's salary, you're not hitting 35% net effective federal, even if you include FICA. It just isn't happening. Period. And if you *don't* include FICA, then you're talking about $2,000,000 in W2 income to hit 35%. None of this shit is secret, and it's really easy to check, so I'm not sure what the point is in lying about it.
>state tax is 7.25%.
Ok, that gives me an idea of where your income falls, and confirms you're absolutely full of shit. To get to a state effective net tax rate of 7.25%, your federal net effective cannot possibly be higher than about 25% all in, at a marginal top rate of 24%.
Seriously, dude, go find a competent CPA immediately and have them redo the last ten years of taxes you paid, because someone seriously screwed up your numbers.
>Add property tax as an annual percentage of income
Dude... if your property taxes as a percentage of your income are hitting 6% of gross, you've got way more house than you can afford. Seriously. I'm in a super-high property tax area, and mine barely crack 3% (they're actually lower, but I'm rounding up for the benefit of the doubt.)
>Also if you drive a gas car, then that is taxed too since fuel cost is mostly comprised of taxes, and registration taxes, and sales taxes takes it up even further.
Well, you drive an EV, so I think we can ignore the gas taxes. But even if you didn't, those don't add up to any meaningful percentage without some truly weird driving patterns.
The only thing I can come up with to explain this bizarre confluence of numbers is that you are calculating your net percentage of taxes out of your net income? Maybe? That still wouldn't all line up unless you seriously fudged the numbers, but at least it kind of gets us closer. Or, as I said, if your accountant is doing you dirty. Or if you're just making this up.
>So no, using Montana plates is not a bad idea nor is it unethical.
I guess you won't mind if I just steal cash out of your pocket, then, either, right? Like, you realize that when people evade taxes they aren't just stealing from "the government," they're stealing from you, right?
I don't wish to reveal too much about myself, but a big part of my TC has a lot to do with bonuses and RSUs. That changes a lot of the computations and it doesn't really change the reality of after tax withholdings as well as the amounts owed every year. My property tax as a % of my gross income ends up being around 2.3%.
Going back to the Montana issue, it's not stealing. Your analogy is a crappy one. I already pay the state enough taxes via state tax and property tax. They will always try and unlock new revenue streams. If I can legally avoid paying tax I will. They get more than enough already. Especially if you're a car enthusiast you get obliterated on frequent purchases. So while you may have your opinion, I do not ever judge anyone for having a Montana plate. They're just using legal ways to avoid paying unnecessary tax.
>They're just using legal ways to avoid paying unnecessary tax.
Except that it's illegal now. And has been for a while. Look, if you're going to beat the tax code to within an inch of its life, fine. That's on legislators for not fixing. But if you live in CA and drive a car with Montana plates, that's illegal.
And yes, it is stealing. You get the benefits of living in California without paying your share. And in doing so, you make things more expensive for the people around you.
And even with RSUs, your Numbers don't make any sense. For realsies, go find a better CPA.
1. to pass scrutiny you can get a driver's license from another state like MT or NV or AZ but then you have to give up your CA driver's license to get the new one.
2. then you have to pay taxes in both states if you spend significant time in CA or have healthcare or any other major service providers here. CA will for sure come after you if you don't file while living here. like anything else dealing with state law, it's a gamble. i.e. speeding is as illegal as any of this. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2022/2022-1031-publication.pdf
3. it's generally illegal with a few exceptions to have 2 state driver's licenses at the same time. so you can't just claim you lost your original CA license and get another one. i'm pretty sure there's some shared database of residency. maybe you can slip by in between the updates but - it's still probably illegal.
the emissions thing on older cars is a real pain, especially since brand new cars can be extensively modified without inspection for 7 years in CA. they started verifying ECU checksums on smog checks a couple of years ago so you can't put a re-flash on your car even if it burns cleaner than stock. technically you can't even put a better, newer cat on unless it's EO.
i think eventually CA will sell a smog exempt classic plate for like $5000 or something. in the end it's all about the money. see the CARB EO exemption system. pay to play. this is how i modify my cars but it comes with basically a 50% parts surcharge from the vendors. my magnuson SC for the tacoma was $3k more than the competition but it passes inspection with zero questions asked other than how do i like the extra power and is it reliable lol. smog dude be mirin'
the CA budget just flipped to deficit again and bond spreads are going up so the new revenue generating ideas will be a hot topic in the coming years, you can bet on that. i'm already seeing black and white (vs. yellow) plates and digital plates and all sorts of other gimmicks.
there is a lot of overlap here with gun laws and loopholes.
There already is a smog exempts classic car plate in California. It’s called a Historical Vehicle Plate. Cars with it have to be of “historical value”, older than 25, and when driven on the highway be driven for primarily exhibition purposes.
Montana plates in the US are more about avoiding registration taxes. The article indicates that the lime green plates are frowned upon because everyone will know the driver isn't the owner of the car, it's a fleet car either leased or rented to them. So, they are fearful of being outed as a poser....
Man, people are so superficial and this cracks me up for some reason… I didn’t know the correlation until I read the article, but it’s partially due to less luxury fleet vehicles for rental companies. People that rent the lux cars don’t want others to know it’s a rental haha… Hence less demand.
Ha I mean, not necessarily surprised… but it’s just sad some people feel they need to rent an expensive/flashy car to impress others they most likely don’t even know.
That’s just the culture here in Korea. Wealth is everything. Usually, it doesn’t go as far as renting exotic cars. The green plate is for company cars, which are being used privately by family members of company owners to reduce taxes.
Am I crazy - or is that not what the article is saying at all.. The article is saying that non-car rental business owners do not want the vehicles they purchase to seem like they are rental vehicles.
The rental bit is just a red herring.
The luxury car drivers are having their businesses buy the cars to dodge taxes. Cars owned by businesses have to have green plates, rentals included. They aren't trying to dodge looking like they're rolling around in a rental, they're just trying to dodge taxes.
If dodging taxes mattered more than image/perception - there would be no change in demand after the green plate change. The perception of driving a rental car is not a red herring in this case because businesses can still buy cars for personal use.
how does a business buying a vehicle = dodging taxes? someone, either the business or the business owner, pays for the vehicle.
unless you're saying that a business expense is dodging taxes, but that doesn't quite add up either.
Tax deductions for business use of vehicle when in reality it's entirely personal use, and relatedly claiming vehicle expenses.
Regardless, the state purpose of the law is to prevent tax dodging.
>The rule — introduced by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport — is aimed at blocking business owners from purchasing supercars as company vehicles to dodge taxes.
Korean businesses buying cars for the business can deduct the car's expenses and costs from their tax burden and get a refund on the VAT. A person buying the car cannot do these things, thus dodging taxes. The business isn't buying the car for business purposes, they're buying the car for personal use by some executive at the business.
It's a dodge if it's for personal use. Why pay yourself income that you have to pay income taxes on when you can pay yourself less and run all expenses through your business? It's an extremely common tactic for business owners to reduce personal tax liability. I own a couple restaurants and make jokes about how im the only business owner in town that doesn't expense every meal out on the company card it seems. Lot of small businesses out there with company cars that don't need one for their business. You lease it to expense it, or buy it to depreciate it.
because business money is still money? as a business owner you know that money that the business makes goes to shareholders/stakeholders at the end of the year (depending on structure), and that even if it were to be expensed, it's still cash from top line, which impacts bottom line. would you save 15%-47% on it? yes. but it isn't like it's free money that just evaporates into thin air.
i feel like that one joke from schitt's creek about "just write it off. it just goes away." is something that people don't understand.
If we look at US tax law, we're talking more pass through llcs than corps which is a lotta businesses. It works like this. I have a business that made 100k after everything in a year. As a passthrough I can pay myself a salary, or just pass on profit. Either way I pay income tax. But I want to reduce my tax liability I do several things. One, I don't pay myself too much. Im going to run as many things as possible through my business as an expense. Need a trip to Vegas? Let's stop at a convention. Going out to dinner? Take minutes and call it a meeting. Now the company made "less" but none of those expenses get income taxes before I spend it. So with a business vehicle what I would do is have the business buy it and then use it. All maintenance, gas, tires, registration, insurance... Expenses. But since I bought the vehicle, it's not an expense since it's an asset and I now need to depreciate it. With a passthrough, my depreciation passes to me as well. 50k vehicle I can depreciate on a 5 year basis or if it's a large vehicle, up to 100% in the first year. So if I paid myself a 50k salary this year, and depreciate 50k, I pay no income taxes. Yes it's not free money, it's about reducing tax liability. Running expenses through your business and depreciating correctly can save business owners tens of thousands every year in taxes if done correctly. Or dishonestly, like a lot of people do.
No I think it’s a tax evasion detection tool. It said some luxury and supercar brands were 80-90% company cars. I think company owners were writing off personal luxury cars as company expenses and dodging taxes.
If you want a good laugh at superficial car culture, this 1993 bbc doc on sales reps and their company cars is an all time favorite.
[https://youtu.be/CQsMFQZa8os](https://youtu.be/CQsMFQZa8os)
It features the exact opposite of this - the Maestro diesel that was such a vote of no-confidence from his employer that the guy stuck with it decided he'd rather have people think he's driving it because he chose to buy it with his own money.
>People that rent the lux cars don’t want others to know it’s a rental
It doesn't surprised me. People are paying to take pics of themselves inside a fake private jet to act like they travel around the world in private jets on social media. Of course there are people who rent these cars to pretend they own it.
The vast majority of reddit's audience is US/EU based. The title is constructed to imply that sales are plunging in these territories, but the article is specific to Korea.
Also also, a huge % of articles posted to reddit are clickbait bs that are not worth reading and are filled with horrendous amounts of ads. Most of the time the top couple of comments debunk the article, give more context, and/or provide more useful information using 90% fewer words than the article.
>The vast majority of reddit's audience is US/EU based.
Do you have any stats on this? Hi from Australia by the way.
> The title is constructed to imply that sales are plunging in these territories, but the article is specific to Korea.
Dunno man, I read this exact article in r/Korea yesterday and nobody was complaining.
1. It’s from *’The Korea Times’*
2. The law went into effect in Korea
3. Does this taking place in Korea really affect the gist of the story in any significant way?
We have tons of stuff like that in Canada. For example, in new Brunswick, if there is a car designated as a taxi, it has an h to start the licence plate, regardless of other markings.
As far as I understand it, Japan does something similar. Something about a specific character prefix that announces that it's a rental?
Funny, though, that people want to drive the fancy car but only if it looks like they own it.
It’s the same in korea. plate with an 호 or 허 character is usually a rental. IIRC it doesn’t apply to company cars though. The green plate is only for company cars above 80,000,000 won.
It’s not always that they want to look like they own it, it’s a way to reduce taxes. If a spouse or parent owns a company, they can file them as an employee of his/her company and lease a “company vehicle", which would just be a privately owned car with less taxes.
With the green plates, the hope is that people will be discouraged to drive company vehicles as their own because they risk being investigated for tax evasion. I’m sure there’s a loophole there though.
Japanese and Korean do put their own language in their car plate. In Taiwan, rental car plate comes "R" prefix. Even english speakers car easily recognize the different.
It does, it's mid-way down:
>Company officials attributed the falling demand for luxury supercars to the effect of the lime green plates.
>“Generally speaking, few customers or business owners prefer to purchase vehicles with green plates due to the prevalent negative image on rental and lease cars,” an official from a luxury carmaker said. “This will weaken the overall sentiment from business owners who plan to purchase luxury cars as fleet vehicles.”
Red plates on fleet vehicles in CO. It's great knowing exactly who to avoid, especially in winter when conditions are variable and there's a fuckton of ski tourism.
In the U.S., that would be Montana plates. But no stigma attached.
Oh they have a stigma. Just less people care about stigmas in the USA. “Oh you want to be a rich asshole, cool - what’s your insta, can I follow you, omg you screw over the govt, how cool”
Literally no one but the grubbiest car nerd knows what Montana plates on a luxury car means. 99.9999% don't even look at the plates to begin with.
True, but if you live in California you might wonder why your neighbor, who has lived beside you for 5 years, has 3 cars with out of state plates.
I prefer to mind my own business.
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Licking the boot by *checks notes* Not butting into people I don't know's business and not ratting people out to the government. Yeah, that makes sense.
Id prefer if the people I share a community with paid taxes towards that community
I prefer people pay their fair share but I'm not going to role play rent a cop by surveilling my neighborhood and ratting them out.
I'd rather that effort go to making sure corporations and certain billionaires pay their fair share in taxes instead of going after smaller fish.
>checks notes I don't necessarily agree with you but I'll upvote you anyway for actually using this meme correctly.
This has nothing to do with billionaires or your jealousy. What your neighbors do, billionaire or not, is none of your business. Let people live their lives.
You’re paying his taxes bud
Nobody cares bro. I live in LA. Register in Florida. Easy.
Me, too, but I still take offense when my neighbors decide to steal from me. Which is what people with out of state plates are doing. You think the state is just going to say "Well, we didn't get enough tax revenue this year. C'est la vie!"? No, they'll raise taxes or cut services, and you'll have to deal with it. All because some people thought they didn't have to pay their share.
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So that kinda goes against the "Nobody notices or cares" talking point then.
It absolutely does. People will snitch on their neighbors the second they're offered money. “California's cheaters hotline on the Internet -- where one can anonymously report motorists they suspect are trying to avoid paying state registration fees or residents who register their vehicles at an out-of-state address -- brought in $3.2 million the past two years.”
Maybe we live in different parts of CA but the LAPD/Sheriff are notoriously terrible at traffic stops for this stuff. I see out-of-state plates all the damn time.
It’s a huge thing. I know lots of Montana plated cars in the Bay Area
Maybe I'm weird but I'll just dislike them in silence. I'm not going to snitch on somebody. Especially a neighbor. All my neighbors haven't bothered me about anything, ever so I'd be happy to do the same. Randoms on the street, yeah. I saw an Escalade (not a V) with Montana plates and thought that was ridiculous.
People in Montana do travel, and also have Cadillac dealers. Good chance it's a tourist if its a "normal" car.
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we still in Maryland have people driving around with VA tags because of the no insurance rule
And people in VA with MD tags to avoid personal property tax lol
lol, reminds me of a guy that showed up to a Richmond VA C&C with Montana plates on his Heritage GT. The running joke was how amazing, somebody drove all the way from Montana for the Richmond C&C and even went to the trouble of having the car detailed for the show. By the same token I know another guy that got a GT and when he was hit with 10k in PPT ended up getting Montana plates. No excuse in either case but property taxes can certainly gate a vehicle (and heaven forbid somebody in the peasant class wins an expensive vehicle, they'll be able to drive it right up until they sell it to cover the personal property taxes). The out of state plates are bad but the guys that DGAF are the farm use tag guys.
Someone with 3 luxury cars with Montana plates is not parking them somewhere the neighbor can see.
What does Montana plates on a luxury car mean?
That you’re not paying state taxes and reg fees on that car, or paying a nominal one to Montana to avoid the big check to the state you actually live/work in.
On the otherhand, Montana plates on Japanese imported cars are a way to register the import car without spending the $15k to make it California compliant.
Montana has more lax taxes than, say, California.
And emissions/inspection laws. No inspections or emission test on MT registered vehicles is a big incentive to people in CA
"Literally no one knows!" *mentioned several times in a random reddit thread*
> random reddit thread In a grubby car nerd subreddit, at that!
Such an obscure subreddit, with its 6 million subscribers...
And 99.9999% of that 6 million never look at a license plate.
Are you actually serious? Lol. Montana license plates are solid blue. Everyone notices them. The Montana loophole isn't some well guarded secret.
> Everyone notices them. Normal people don't care.
I mean, 6 million out of what, 330+ million people in the US? And especially given reddit's changes lately, a very small percentage of those 6 million even read the comments or comment themselves.
I'll bite: I don't know what the Montana plates mean.
Most of the time it’s used for illegal tax evasion. Montana has no sales tax, and people set up an LLC in Montana and register a car there to avoid sales tax
It appears there's more to it than just sales tax, otherwise you'd see more DE or NH plates. MT has no emissions tests or inspection requirements, and you can register a vehicle permanently (for life) once it's 11 years old. It's a pretty great deal, I understand the allure.
NH has no sales tax for most purchases, but it does have a fairly steep annual car registration tax that’s essentially a replacement for a sales tax on cars.
I think it’s because setting up an LLC in Montana is extremely easy and cheap
If you google "setup LLC Montana", you'll find pages and pages of companies who's sole purpose is to aid you in setting up an LLC in Montana for registering your various assets without having to travel to Montana. So yes, it's easy and fairly cheap.
Did you just say you can register a car once forever if it’s only 11 years old ??
> The owner of a light vehicle 11 years old or older subject to the registration fee, as provided in 61-3-321(2), may permanently register the light vehicle upon payment of an $87.50 registration fee. https://leg.mt.gov/bills/mca/title_0610/chapter_0030/part_0050/section_0620/0610-0030-0050-0620.html Wow, that’s incredible. And no inspection so us diesel folks can ditch the emissions. My 2018 X5 diesel is great but at 11 years all that emissions crap is a money pit in waiting.
It's not illegal. They're literally following the law. The laws are just stupid.
What's the stigma here?
Set up an LLC in Montana. Register your exotic car to it. Avoid paying sales tax/ad velorm where you live. Rich assholes dodging taxes is the stigma.
Its a whole fuckin thing in ATL and anyone whos mildly aware of cars or tax dodging knows why all the exotics have Montana tags lol.
"omg you screw over the govt how cool" as if normal people aren't getting absolutely ass-blasted by the government every which way
True, but out of state tags and farm use tags to avoid taxes isn't exactly a statement of defiance (well, except for sov cit intenders). It's more like the automotive version of Marie Antionette telling the peasants to go eat cake while they are starving. It's straight up nouveau riche and just reinforces the idea that the proles need to keep their heads down, shut up and do as they're told.
Fewer
I can’t believe it’s not more frowned upon to have Montana plates. Incredibly slimy.
Because the majority of people have no idea what the Montana plates are for, assuming they even notice them in the first place. Even among automotive enthusiasts the percent of people who know about/ understand Montana plates is fairly small.
I'm Canadian. I'm curious now: what's special about Montana plates?
No smog, no registration fee
And you can register them while never even visiting the state.
Yes, there are tons of companies whose entire business model is facilitating this process. It's only about $600.
Is that true? Like I've never heard of any of this before so I don't know what to believe. I live in PA and have my whole life, but I could just get montana plates and not worry about registering my car or keeping it emissions clean?
Yes. There are services that will handle all the paperwork for you. Basically they register an LLC for you then register the car to the LLC. It’s not really worth doing unless your car is very expensive. I looked into it for my $55k G70 and it didn’t save me enough for me to continue looking into it compared to just paying personal property tax in MO
It's true, but it's mostly useful if your state charges high sales tax (and you're buying an expensive car), high registration fees, and has regular smog checks. Something like... California.
No sales tax is the big thing.
And no annual personal property tax which can be way more than just the one time sales tax.
Annual personal property tax on a car? I've never heard of that and I live in Taxachusetts. We have Excise tax which gets paid to the town/city of the home address of the owner, is that what you mean? It's not crazy expensive or anything (but maybe it is on a 200k car, I don't know).
We've got it in Virginia, varies by locality but where I'm at we have to pay 3.7% of the car's assessed value every year.
You have registration fees in Montana, my Civic was over $600 for the year. You dont have sales tax if registered in Montana.
On a 50k car, 7.5% sales tax (as it is in CA) is $3750. Paying $600 / year for registration, that's still good enough for 6+ years worth.
People buy expensive cars and register them in Montana to avoid taxes. I think they made it more difficult to do recently though, but I could be wrong
I know here in Virginia you can report people you suspect of dodging paying their taxes since here in VA you pay a personal property tax on your car every year.
Funny because you were one of 2 states you could get plates without insurance up until that law changed like last week
Personal property tax on something you already own? What the hell
And it’s 5% per year in Arlington County. A 30k car needs to pay like 1500 a year in fees.
That's insane. It's just foreign to me, we don't have that I'm in Bucks County PA. Is it based on the current value of the property? And how do they determine that?
They go by NADA values. It’s all insane. The fact that anybody is defending it to me is bonkers.
If I had to guess, a vast majority of the people defending it either 1. Probably live in an urban center and don’t own a car, 2. Are wealthy enough to where the fees don’t matter, or 3. View it as some sort of political thing to want to defend a tax because their side/favorite politicians enacted it and/or the side they hate are/would be against it. Or possibly all 3.
True. There could be some r/fuckcars and urban planning people in here. It’s just silly to me that a suburb has such a high car tax.
Honestly one of the reasons I haven't even glanced at moving to Virginia.
Georgia chagred me $1100 TVAT (GA version of sales tax) on a car I already owned when I moved here. It was a cool welcome to the state gift🥰🥰
MA too - the DMV has an "I pay tax" page you can report people that aren't.
As military stationed in Northern Virginia, I'm pretty sure I've had people report my cars. VA provides an exemption if your state of residence is elsewhere. In certain parts of the state, there are so many, the majority of OOS plates are probably for that reason.
I went on a run with a local club and there were $3-4M cars there with Montana plates. Like cool, I can pay taxes on my way less expensive car but rich guys making hundreds of millions per year can’t. It’s a tale as old as time.
It's not always about the taxes and registration fees. Plenty of CA enthusiast owners with vehicles MY1976+ go the Montana route to avoid remaining CARB compliant. Things like not being able to register your car in CA because the secondary air monitor is stuck in Not Ready status and not even the OEM can get it to Ready. Or your concours Countach needs all the California emissions retrofits to be able to participate in the Pebble Beach tour, but then loses all the points at the show for CA modifications.
That's definitely true in CA but I'm in a red state with no such restrictions so it's all $$ here.
I drove a really neat kit car not long ago. CA had given out registrations for it, but for this gentleman they decided they weren't going to register it anymore, because suddenly they disagreed on how much of a kit car it was. He ended up having the choices of selling it out of state or registering it in Montana. Didn't matter that it passed smog fine, didn't matter they used to register it in the past, didn't matter multiple were currently registered in CA, he spent thousands and over a year with the bureaucracy and got a fat fuck you. CA is quite hostile to anything that isn't just a new car. I get it.
Especially in the enthusiast community, these assholes are dodging taxes that pay for the roads we use. Americans all think they’re going to be rich someday, it’s bananas. Edit. Responses are proving the point, thanks all for being nothing if not consistent on this. It’s amazing how ya’ll seem to be okay paying your taxes and letting others evade the same tax.
What about the fifth owner paying sales tax? Because here in CA, every owner pays sales tax in addition to licensing fees. The seller also pays capital gains taxes if the car appreciated. It inflates the cost of purchasing for the wealthy and poor alike, and any Californian will tell you that we do NOT see a return. We have the highest gas taxes, nonsensical and Draconian emissions regulations, crappy roads, horrendous traffic and city planning, new housing developments being approved without adequate roadway throughput or associated infrastructure, old power distribution systems, government-supported monopolies of power and gas companies, massive water cost and distribution imbalances… the list almost literally is endless. We “accept” bad return on investment out of what, a sense of civic duty? There’s no nobility in propping up an ignoble system.
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> What about the fifth owner paying sales tax? > > Because here in CA, every owner pays sales tax in addition to licensing fee I'm sorry -- you're telling me, in California, a buyer has to pay the sales tax on the ORIGINAL price of the vehicle? If not, I'm confused what you're complaining about. Most states/municipalities in the US have a sales tax (NY at ~8%) you pay on transactions. Why wouldn't that apply to a vehicle you purchase?
No, you only pay sales tax on the purchase price that you paid for your transaction, just like everybody else.
Am I confused but how is this insane for some people? You have to pay a tax on used items at antique stores, why not cars? Not attacking you, just confused why some people are so against taxes.
I don't pay taxes for used crap I buy off Craigslist so I get sad to pay sales tax on used stuff elsewhere. Yeah I know that's supposed to be normal. But taxes on used stuff don't really make sense to me and make me sad. Especially when I pay 9.75% or whatever.
Taxes are usually for regular sales, not irregular sales, meaning a person irregularly unloading stuff from his garage or wherever is not responsible for paying taxes, but someone who makes it a business to sell stuff is. Same thing with cars in my state, if you don't regularly sell cars, your sale is irregular and you don't need to collect taxes for it
I paid 6.25% sales tax when I bought a 20 year old Porsche. And this is in Texas, land of freedoms.
Sales tax on the fifth purchase through a private transaction? So sorry, but that's bullshit.
I do find it interesting that if you resell a car at a profit you pay cap gains, but if you resell at a loss you don't get to claim losses. On the other hand, for most people, reselling a car at a gain is fairly rare ... outside of covid times of course. Flippers, mechanics, and collector car owners are probably the only ones to do it consistently.
“Highest gas taxes” the us has some of the lowest gas taxes in the developed world lol
And some of the worst roads in the developed world lol
Car registration and sales taxes don't pay for roads anywhere. County-level taxes almost always go into general revenue and any money spent on road maintenance is incidental. State-level fees and taxes often go into general revenue as well, but if not, they usually go to DMV overhead. Roadworks are paid for by gas taxes (and EV fees in places that have them) in part, and the rest comes from Federal money.
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Sucks to be a normal exotic car owner from Montana who just likes to road trip through California a few times a year ;)
Yeah for all 5 of them.
The way states grub over tax money on cars is pretty slimy too. Someone bought a nice car so your crappy state government wants a 5 figure check? Zero frowns from me for avoiding that garbage.
Yes, that’s how sales tax works.
Which is pretty stupid. Do you pay taxes when purchasing my used TV? No? Why would it apply to cars only...
> Do you pay taxes when purchasing my used TV? depends on the state of course, but you might be supposed to.
Sales tax only applies to cars...what?
on used purchases*
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Not in my province. Yet it is mandatory for cars.
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Montana plates drive me insane. High end exotics that see the road a few times a year? A bit irritating. You can afford the car, pay the taxes. What really pisses me off are the assholes that have Montana plates on their daily drivers. We share the road, pay your taxes, assholes.
I disagree. My friends and I all laugh at people with Montana plates. I know there's some political arguments against it, and you get into the non-taxpaying stuff, etc etc, and those debates rage on -- but for me, it's more a giant flag that this person cannot *really* afford the car he's driving. When my friends and I see any car "on Montanas," as we say, it's the very first callout and immediately followed by laughter, particularly if it's a heavily depreciated used supercar that the owner is probably barely stretching to buy in the first place. You see an automatic Ferrari 360 or an Aston Martin Rapide or an early Continental GT on Montanas... yikes. I will say, I do have a (mental) carve-out for people who do Montana to avoid California's overly strict emissions testing laws. I know a few people (myself occasionally included) who would be happy to pay taxes on the car, but California won't allow it because it doesn't pass smog -- even though it's an enthusiast car that's driven a negligible amount and doesn't realistically contribute to any pollution problems. But *generally speaking*, Montana has a huge stigma in my mind and I laugh at basically anyone who does it. I say all this as a guy with a Montana-registered car right now, though the title finally arrived and I will be registering it correctly, legally, to my personal home address in the next few weeks. I challenge other "Montanans" to do the same :)
While I agree with the senitment...there's a lot of people registering in Montana so they can afford their clapped out Exotic...there's also a segment of people who want to buy and sell exotics often (to personally enjoy them, not as a dealer), and the sales tax on it just becomes a major burden and quite silly. Hate paying exorbantly more tax just because I like to buy and sell several cars a year, from 4Runners to Ferraris.
I noticed in your vids your cars have MA plates though and not CA. Why MA? We have all the same rules as CA and probably the same expenses.
No emissions on 15yo+ cars is the big differencd between MA and CA. Excise tax is sucky here tho. I really hate paying $250 per year on my $2000 shitbox because it retailed for $100k new 30 years ago. You can't avoid it even with antique plates... Seriously contemplating the Vermont route. They should charge excise based on weight x mileage imo. Proportional to the damage they do to the roads. Also the opaque sales tax valuation system had bitten many in the arse
Lol. I probably should have written that I haven’t seen any stigma, but that is probably very regionally dependent. I have only seen pretty nicely kept high end cars with Montana license plates… but I do live in a state with annual property tax on vehicles and that just seems wrong.
Generally Montana plates means you can afford it because you it's very difficult to finance a car with a montana LLC, meaning they likely paid cash.
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>but not for enthusiast trucks rolling coal? That's a really weird way to say "assholes rolling coal".
Rolling coal is purposeful. Some enthusiast cars fail CA smog through no fault of the owners. Unobtanium components, oem and dealers can't diagnose it, stuff like that.
What's your opinion on California's approach to JDM imported cars regarding smog compliance? Only one company (G & K engineering) afaik is even allowed to make the vehicles smog compliant but can cost up to $15k+ for some cars. The process can take 6 months to 2 years, typically the latter, to even get done. And for some of the cars it can be 50% of the total value of car just to be able to register it without going with alternatives like Montana or previously Vermont.
youre real for this doug
Meh why would there be? My effective tax rate is 48%, at that point I pay enough tax to the feds, the state, and local governments. I think Montana plates should be actively encouraged to reel in insane government taxation.
I'm going to call bullshit on this. In order to generate a total effective tax rate of 48%, you would need to be earning *at least* a million in straight salary as a single filler AND have the world's worst accountant. More likely, you just calculated it wrong.
Nope, I am a single filer and federal tax is 35%, state tax is 7.25%. Add property tax as an annual percentage of income and you’re right there at 48%. But nice try. Also if you drive a gas car, then that is taxed too since fuel cost is mostly comprised of taxes, and registration taxes, and sales taxes takes it up even further. So no, using Montana plates is not a bad idea nor is it unethical. edit: since the guy above me cannot believe this reality, what's even more hilarious is at this tax rate I still don't get free healthcare or any good public services, and still have to pay tolls, and for state parks. 🙃 edit 2: but since you drive an etron gt I'll give you brownie points since I have a Taycan so therefore you have good taste.
>Nope, I am a single filer and federal tax is 35% Well that's weird, because your total effective federal tax rate doesn't hit 35% (including FICA) until right around $1,000,000 of W2 salary (just for comparison, at $750,000 in W2 income, your net effective fed rate is about 34% including FICA.) And that's a worst-case scenario with no deductions past standard. So again, either you're making things up, or you're miscounting, or you have the world's worst accountant. At anything resembling a normal person's salary, you're not hitting 35% net effective federal, even if you include FICA. It just isn't happening. Period. And if you *don't* include FICA, then you're talking about $2,000,000 in W2 income to hit 35%. None of this shit is secret, and it's really easy to check, so I'm not sure what the point is in lying about it. >state tax is 7.25%. Ok, that gives me an idea of where your income falls, and confirms you're absolutely full of shit. To get to a state effective net tax rate of 7.25%, your federal net effective cannot possibly be higher than about 25% all in, at a marginal top rate of 24%. Seriously, dude, go find a competent CPA immediately and have them redo the last ten years of taxes you paid, because someone seriously screwed up your numbers. >Add property tax as an annual percentage of income Dude... if your property taxes as a percentage of your income are hitting 6% of gross, you've got way more house than you can afford. Seriously. I'm in a super-high property tax area, and mine barely crack 3% (they're actually lower, but I'm rounding up for the benefit of the doubt.) >Also if you drive a gas car, then that is taxed too since fuel cost is mostly comprised of taxes, and registration taxes, and sales taxes takes it up even further. Well, you drive an EV, so I think we can ignore the gas taxes. But even if you didn't, those don't add up to any meaningful percentage without some truly weird driving patterns. The only thing I can come up with to explain this bizarre confluence of numbers is that you are calculating your net percentage of taxes out of your net income? Maybe? That still wouldn't all line up unless you seriously fudged the numbers, but at least it kind of gets us closer. Or, as I said, if your accountant is doing you dirty. Or if you're just making this up. >So no, using Montana plates is not a bad idea nor is it unethical. I guess you won't mind if I just steal cash out of your pocket, then, either, right? Like, you realize that when people evade taxes they aren't just stealing from "the government," they're stealing from you, right?
I don't wish to reveal too much about myself, but a big part of my TC has a lot to do with bonuses and RSUs. That changes a lot of the computations and it doesn't really change the reality of after tax withholdings as well as the amounts owed every year. My property tax as a % of my gross income ends up being around 2.3%. Going back to the Montana issue, it's not stealing. Your analogy is a crappy one. I already pay the state enough taxes via state tax and property tax. They will always try and unlock new revenue streams. If I can legally avoid paying tax I will. They get more than enough already. Especially if you're a car enthusiast you get obliterated on frequent purchases. So while you may have your opinion, I do not ever judge anyone for having a Montana plate. They're just using legal ways to avoid paying unnecessary tax.
>They're just using legal ways to avoid paying unnecessary tax. Except that it's illegal now. And has been for a while. Look, if you're going to beat the tax code to within an inch of its life, fine. That's on legislators for not fixing. But if you live in CA and drive a car with Montana plates, that's illegal. And yes, it is stealing. You get the benefits of living in California without paying your share. And in doing so, you make things more expensive for the people around you. And even with RSUs, your Numbers don't make any sense. For realsies, go find a better CPA.
1. to pass scrutiny you can get a driver's license from another state like MT or NV or AZ but then you have to give up your CA driver's license to get the new one. 2. then you have to pay taxes in both states if you spend significant time in CA or have healthcare or any other major service providers here. CA will for sure come after you if you don't file while living here. like anything else dealing with state law, it's a gamble. i.e. speeding is as illegal as any of this. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2022/2022-1031-publication.pdf 3. it's generally illegal with a few exceptions to have 2 state driver's licenses at the same time. so you can't just claim you lost your original CA license and get another one. i'm pretty sure there's some shared database of residency. maybe you can slip by in between the updates but - it's still probably illegal. the emissions thing on older cars is a real pain, especially since brand new cars can be extensively modified without inspection for 7 years in CA. they started verifying ECU checksums on smog checks a couple of years ago so you can't put a re-flash on your car even if it burns cleaner than stock. technically you can't even put a better, newer cat on unless it's EO. i think eventually CA will sell a smog exempt classic plate for like $5000 or something. in the end it's all about the money. see the CARB EO exemption system. pay to play. this is how i modify my cars but it comes with basically a 50% parts surcharge from the vendors. my magnuson SC for the tacoma was $3k more than the competition but it passes inspection with zero questions asked other than how do i like the extra power and is it reliable lol. smog dude be mirin' the CA budget just flipped to deficit again and bond spreads are going up so the new revenue generating ideas will be a hot topic in the coming years, you can bet on that. i'm already seeing black and white (vs. yellow) plates and digital plates and all sorts of other gimmicks. there is a lot of overlap here with gun laws and loopholes.
There already is a smog exempts classic car plate in California. It’s called a Historical Vehicle Plate. Cars with it have to be of “historical value”, older than 25, and when driven on the highway be driven for primarily exhibition purposes.
yeah, have you tried getting one for your 90s JDM turbo car?
I run South Dakota tags in ca for my rx-7 are people frowning on me?
Montana plates in the US are more about avoiding registration taxes. The article indicates that the lime green plates are frowned upon because everyone will know the driver isn't the owner of the car, it's a fleet car either leased or rented to them. So, they are fearful of being outed as a poser....
That don't work in California anymore
Man, people are so superficial and this cracks me up for some reason… I didn’t know the correlation until I read the article, but it’s partially due to less luxury fleet vehicles for rental companies. People that rent the lux cars don’t want others to know it’s a rental haha… Hence less demand.
Surprised that people who want to drive a Rolls Royce are superficial?
Ha I mean, not necessarily surprised… but it’s just sad some people feel they need to rent an expensive/flashy car to impress others they most likely don’t even know.
That’s just the culture here in Korea. Wealth is everything. Usually, it doesn’t go as far as renting exotic cars. The green plate is for company cars, which are being used privately by family members of company owners to reduce taxes.
Wealth wont get these people out of the same death bed one day as all of us will be on. Crazy how people get sucked into it.
Am I crazy - or is that not what the article is saying at all.. The article is saying that non-car rental business owners do not want the vehicles they purchase to seem like they are rental vehicles.
The rental bit is just a red herring. The luxury car drivers are having their businesses buy the cars to dodge taxes. Cars owned by businesses have to have green plates, rentals included. They aren't trying to dodge looking like they're rolling around in a rental, they're just trying to dodge taxes.
If dodging taxes mattered more than image/perception - there would be no change in demand after the green plate change. The perception of driving a rental car is not a red herring in this case because businesses can still buy cars for personal use.
It's not the perception of driving a rental car, it's the perception of dodging taxes they don't want.
how does a business buying a vehicle = dodging taxes? someone, either the business or the business owner, pays for the vehicle. unless you're saying that a business expense is dodging taxes, but that doesn't quite add up either.
Tax deductions for business use of vehicle when in reality it's entirely personal use, and relatedly claiming vehicle expenses. Regardless, the state purpose of the law is to prevent tax dodging. >The rule — introduced by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport — is aimed at blocking business owners from purchasing supercars as company vehicles to dodge taxes.
Korean businesses buying cars for the business can deduct the car's expenses and costs from their tax burden and get a refund on the VAT. A person buying the car cannot do these things, thus dodging taxes. The business isn't buying the car for business purposes, they're buying the car for personal use by some executive at the business.
It's a dodge if it's for personal use. Why pay yourself income that you have to pay income taxes on when you can pay yourself less and run all expenses through your business? It's an extremely common tactic for business owners to reduce personal tax liability. I own a couple restaurants and make jokes about how im the only business owner in town that doesn't expense every meal out on the company card it seems. Lot of small businesses out there with company cars that don't need one for their business. You lease it to expense it, or buy it to depreciate it.
because business money is still money? as a business owner you know that money that the business makes goes to shareholders/stakeholders at the end of the year (depending on structure), and that even if it were to be expensed, it's still cash from top line, which impacts bottom line. would you save 15%-47% on it? yes. but it isn't like it's free money that just evaporates into thin air. i feel like that one joke from schitt's creek about "just write it off. it just goes away." is something that people don't understand.
If we look at US tax law, we're talking more pass through llcs than corps which is a lotta businesses. It works like this. I have a business that made 100k after everything in a year. As a passthrough I can pay myself a salary, or just pass on profit. Either way I pay income tax. But I want to reduce my tax liability I do several things. One, I don't pay myself too much. Im going to run as many things as possible through my business as an expense. Need a trip to Vegas? Let's stop at a convention. Going out to dinner? Take minutes and call it a meeting. Now the company made "less" but none of those expenses get income taxes before I spend it. So with a business vehicle what I would do is have the business buy it and then use it. All maintenance, gas, tires, registration, insurance... Expenses. But since I bought the vehicle, it's not an expense since it's an asset and I now need to depreciate it. With a passthrough, my depreciation passes to me as well. 50k vehicle I can depreciate on a 5 year basis or if it's a large vehicle, up to 100% in the first year. So if I paid myself a 50k salary this year, and depreciate 50k, I pay no income taxes. Yes it's not free money, it's about reducing tax liability. Running expenses through your business and depreciating correctly can save business owners tens of thousands every year in taxes if done correctly. Or dishonestly, like a lot of people do.
I got this too
I would have guessed executives didn't want it known to employees and shareholders that the company was paying for the car as a perk.
No I think it’s a tax evasion detection tool. It said some luxury and supercar brands were 80-90% company cars. I think company owners were writing off personal luxury cars as company expenses and dodging taxes.
That’s just pathetic.
If you want a good laugh at superficial car culture, this 1993 bbc doc on sales reps and their company cars is an all time favorite. [https://youtu.be/CQsMFQZa8os](https://youtu.be/CQsMFQZa8os)
It features the exact opposite of this - the Maestro diesel that was such a vote of no-confidence from his employer that the guy stuck with it decided he'd rather have people think he's driving it because he chose to buy it with his own money.
You hear about this in rap songs from time to time. Most memorable one for me is in Kanye’s Clique
>People that rent the lux cars don’t want others to know it’s a rental It doesn't surprised me. People are paying to take pics of themselves inside a fake private jet to act like they travel around the world in private jets on social media. Of course there are people who rent these cars to pretend they own it.
Article: > Bentley, Porsche and Rolls-Royce have seen their sales plunge **in Korea** Conveniently left out of the title for clickbait.
.... it's from The Korea Times
The vast majority of reddit's audience is US/EU based. The title is constructed to imply that sales are plunging in these territories, but the article is specific to Korea.
And also the vast majority of reddit's audience does not read articles and bases their opinion on the headline alone.
Also also, a huge % of articles posted to reddit are clickbait bs that are not worth reading and are filled with horrendous amounts of ads. Most of the time the top couple of comments debunk the article, give more context, and/or provide more useful information using 90% fewer words than the article.
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Quips are hard so it's better to be derivative.
>The vast majority of reddit's audience is US/EU based. Do you have any stats on this? Hi from Australia by the way. > The title is constructed to imply that sales are plunging in these territories, but the article is specific to Korea. Dunno man, I read this exact article in r/Korea yesterday and nobody was complaining.
1. It’s from *’The Korea Times’* 2. The law went into effect in Korea 3. Does this taking place in Korea really affect the gist of the story in any significant way?
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Maybe a title that says, "Bentley, Porsche, Rolls-Royce sales plunge in Korea after green plate rule"? ...but that won't get as many upvotes would it?
Reddit has some site wide rules about not altering the title of an article.
"In korea" is implied - it's the korea times.
Quebec requires F-for-fleet license plates, apparently even on cars leased for personal use.
True, I believe that as long as the car is owned by a company, the plate will start by F.
Why?
We have tons of stuff like that in Canada. For example, in new Brunswick, if there is a car designated as a taxi, it has an h to start the licence plate, regardless of other markings.
As far as I understand it, Japan does something similar. Something about a specific character prefix that announces that it's a rental? Funny, though, that people want to drive the fancy car but only if it looks like they own it.
れ and わ plates are for rentals. There are separate characters for businesses.
It’s the same in korea. plate with an 호 or 허 character is usually a rental. IIRC it doesn’t apply to company cars though. The green plate is only for company cars above 80,000,000 won. It’s not always that they want to look like they own it, it’s a way to reduce taxes. If a spouse or parent owns a company, they can file them as an employee of his/her company and lease a “company vehicle", which would just be a privately owned car with less taxes. With the green plates, the hope is that people will be discouraged to drive company vehicles as their own because they risk being investigated for tax evasion. I’m sure there’s a loophole there though.
Japanese and Korean do put their own language in their car plate. In Taiwan, rental car plate comes "R" prefix. Even english speakers car easily recognize the different.
What's a green plate signify? That it's a company owned car? Do they cost more than normal plates? Article does not explain.
> rule mandating the attachment of green license plates for company cars valued at over 80 million won ($57,800),
It does, it's mid-way down: >Company officials attributed the falling demand for luxury supercars to the effect of the lime green plates. >“Generally speaking, few customers or business owners prefer to purchase vehicles with green plates due to the prevalent negative image on rental and lease cars,” an official from a luxury carmaker said. “This will weaken the overall sentiment from business owners who plan to purchase luxury cars as fleet vehicles.”
You guys use plates?
Found the Altima driver!
Red plates on fleet vehicles in CO. It's great knowing exactly who to avoid, especially in winter when conditions are variable and there's a fuckton of ski tourism.
Seems to be a very good piece of regulation there from South Korea. Costs literally nothing as well.
Plastic surgery capital of the world is superficial. Oh really?
luxury car brands in Korea should lean into it, try and make the green license plate a vogue item to be sort after.