Where Do People Register Expensive Cars

hot-car — Don't let the plates fool y'all. This car was photographed in California.

By Ed Kemmick

I wrote terminal year about how people from all over the country were licensing their pricey RVs in Montana, to avoid paying the sales revenue enhancement in their home states.

Well, a writer for Autotrader.com says the owners of loftier-priced exotic cars are doing the same affair. Here's how Doug DeMuro starts the article:

"I recently attended Monterey Motorcar Week, which is this wonderful automotive event that brings together car enthusiasts from all over the globe and exotic cars from all over Montana.

"I say this because virtually every high-dollar exotic car you see during Monterey Car Week has a Montana license plate. LaFerrari? Montana license plate. Porsche 959? Montana license plate. After a while, you lot start to wonder if perhaps next year they should flake the whole Monterey Car Week affair and just hold the event in Helena just to make it easier on everyone."

And here'due south the why:

"Walk into a DMV in California to register your new $one.5-million McLaren P1, and you'll pay something like $120,000 … for a license plate. That's similar $17,000 per letter or number. It'due south $x,000 per inch of license plate. …

"On the other end of the spectrum, you accept Montana. Rural, comfortable, relaxed Montana, where in that location's no sales revenue enhancement, and registering that very same McLaren P1 costs you something similar $200 in registration fees. This cost difference—for those of you lot without handy access to a calculator—is roughly $119,800."

He goes on to explain, as I did in my story last year, that Montana is also attractive because yous don't have to register your vehicle in person, and considering all sorts of businesses exist solely to help the owners of high-dollar vehicles and RVs avoid sales taxes.

And hither'due south another curious fact: In the photos accompanying the article, you can encounter county numbers on merely ii plates, and they're both registered in Granite County (46), the canton seat of which is Philipsburg. Does P-Burg offer fifty-fifty better deals, somehow?

The merely wrinkle, of form, is that it'south illegal to register your vehicle in 1 land and actually reside in and bulldoze your vehicle in another. But it's clearly worth the risk for a lot of people.

The story has a fine catastrophe as well. Later on warning taxation cheats to exist conscientious, DeMuro adds:

"Unless, of class, y'all actually live in Montana with your LaFerrari. Then your license plates will blend right in. Your machine, however, may raise a few eyebrows."

I'grand afraid he's probably right nigh that.

Ed Kemmick has been a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist since 1980 and is the founder of Last Best News in Billings.