Just was wondering if this could all be handled by the dealer so as to reduce the work on my part. I thought I had heard something a while back about WA residents buying and registering cars in Portland to avoid WA salees tax, and them having some dealers do the registration for WA residents. 'couse, I could just be way off here.

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Let me be clear that I'm not trying to avoid the tax. I'm just lazy and would like Rasmussen to handle all the legwork for me on the tax & registration

In taking a closer look at my PO it does appear that they have included the use tax in the total amount. It's in the total but not explicitly called out. I've asked them to add a line item showing that they will be collecting the sales & use tax and handling registration.

 

I need to know the truth about these oregon car taxes too, from what I know you should register your car with oregon plates in order to get the tax waived, then again you need an oregon ID to register the car in that state. someone please correct me if im wrong

 

That would be illegal as well.

 

If you are a WA resident and purchase or register a car out of state in an effort to avoid the Washington sales/use tax then you are breaking the law. There may be ways that people say you can skip the tax but they very questionable if not outright illegal.

 

When I picked the lotus up down in oregon I was charged sales tax or at least what they estimated the sale tax to add up to. While doing the paperwork they got my address and a few weeks later plates and tabs showed up at the house. You can't legally get around the tax that I know of but it is tax deductible for buying a new vehicle or so h n r says so.

 

The dealership can absolutely take care of the paperwork for you.

 

oh sorry I never thought about that since I've been in the us for less than 3 years, I still need to learn more about the laws here. And to be clear on my previous statement, what I meant was you got to be an oregon citizen or whatever its called to not pay the taxes on the car, otherwise you couldnt get the tax waived.

 

Just go look for bags of cash next to your closest stop sign. Then you wouldn't have to worry about all that tax stuff.......

Sorry. Just had to.....

 

lol...priceless!

 

in the 80's you would see a lot of those yellow oregon plates for this reason. people buying cars in oregon and driving them with oregon tabs for the year. some probably even used friends or relatives that lived in oregon to mail the new tabs to. washington caught on quickly and made it a priority to get these plates changed over. they then charged sales tax to renew the tabs and add the proper wash plate. I believe that ended people driving to oregon to buy cars.
No different then buying now from nyc or florida or southern cal. when it arrives you renew the tabs and they pull out the little book and charge you tax.

the only way around it is to get a dealer plate and faux dealership/wholesale license. to keep this you must technically have cars for sale. you also drive with that dealer plate on all of your cars. problem with this is when /if you get caught its a very large fine and far supercedes the 5k-30k you would have spent to begin with.

 

I had an attorney look at this issue this summer because I wanted the scoop given that I (a WA resident) had made a personal investment in the Oregon LLC that owns Oregon Raceway Park, so I thought, "hmmm, if I buy I car that I plan to use on the track in OR as well as for daily driving in WA, can I have it registered in Oregon at the track address, avoid sales tax, but still get to drive it in both states?" The attorney did some research and it comes down to a few points. First, you don't need to be an Oregon resident to buy a car down there. But if you're a WA resident you can certainly buy a car in OR and avoid sales tax since OR doesn't have one, but you have to pay WA "use tax". And voila, WA use tax equals WA sales tax. According to WA state law, Washington’s use tax would apply to a motor vehicle that is purchased in Oregon then brought into Washington for a use that is more than temporary in nature. This was further translated by the attorney to mean that if it's going to be dispatched, garaged, serviced, maintained, and/or operated in WA for more than 51% of the time, it would be seen by the state (if audited) as residing in WA and subject to use tax.

Bottom line as it relates to me is that I could pull this off and drive it in WA if I buy a car in OR and keep it at the track 51% of the time. Bottom line as it relates to others that live in WA without any OR addresses and plan to keep it in WA is that you really should pay the use tax and not try to use someone else's address, as Mark mentioned used to happen a lot in the past.