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Buying Roadster Referral
- Thread starter Paul2017
- Start date
n2mb_racing
Active Member
rocketshipp85
Member
One reason is the buyer might not have to put down the entire down-payment initially. I haven't checked the numbers recently but Tesla used to require $50k down on a regular roadster or the entire $250k for a founder's series. With a private sale, the seller could agree to accept a smaller down-payment, with the rest paid closer to delivery. This would allow the buyer to continue to invest or earn the remaining funds. If those who had put down the entire $250k back in 2017 had invested the same amount in TSLA and similar stocks instead, they could've made several million over the past few years. Those who put down the $50k could've earned more than enough to pay off the roadster entirely.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
Additionally, the referral awards are the Founder's Edition, which may become unavailable by the time the cars are produced. As well as I think there's going to be quite a number of these referral Roadsters available for sale, they might be selling for a discount over retail price, so the referral buyer gets to share in the seller's discount. And there's the timing issue, if one was to reserve now, they would go at the end of the list, although we really don't know where the referral winners will be placed when the car is launched compared to buyers paying full price.
But I'm starting to wonder if the NGR will actually ever be produced, with all these other higher priority, high sales models will yet to be produced (CT, Semi, "Model Zero", etc) and the Plaid Model S being the beast that it is we saw last night. The NGR makes for great marketing and Elon flagellating himself over the SpaceX air thrusters and such, so it does serve a purpose. But will it actually be produced in the volumes we expect? And if not, will all the referral award winners get Plaid Model S with 4680s and the SpaceX package instead? (I'd be OK with that).
MaxPowers
Member
This is just a warning to the referral sellers. You are going to take a tax liability for the discount on the roadster so be sure to take that into consideration when you are selling the referral.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
Just to clarify, (in the US) there's a tax liability for claiming the referral award. There's no tax liability for selling the award. So if you sell it or not, you're still paying Fed+State income tax on the value of the discount.
@HankLloydRight thank you for the information. I believe you spoke about a legal process with having the buyer be the registered owner, pay for the car minus the referral discount that the referral owner is giving to the buyer?
MaxPowers
Member
How do you sell the reward without claiming it? Per Tesla the discount isn't transferable so you have to claim it which means you buy the roadster yourself. Then you can sell the roadster. That's my understanding of it.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
I didn't say you can sell the reward without claiming it. I said you pay taxes on the award regardless if you sell it or not.
HankLloydRight
No Roads
Yes, I sold a Model 3 this way. While this was a few years ago, I ordered the car on my account, while the buyer input all their registration and insurance info during the process. When the car was delivered, we transferred the car to his Tesla account. Whether or not we can still do that with the NGR is still an unknown, but there are easy ways to handle that, like having an LLC buy the car, then changing the LLC ownership after the fact.
Ah thank you @HankLloydRight. Do I recall you saying something about a legal document with money put in escrow?
HankLloydRight
No Roads
Yes, we had a contract we wrote up, but no escrow. That was an option though, but expensive. Escrow.com wouldn't work (you have to fit into their exact boxes, which we did not), and a lawyer was too expensive -- wanted ~$1k just to do the escrow.
Very true. At this point if I am buying a reservation now, I would want one with at least 40%. The roadster is not a priority. I think it will happen but not anytime soon. Plaid S,X pipeline will take at least a year to stabilize. Then probably 2 years for CB to get all set and mass produced. Maybe roadster after that. I would think it’s at least 2 years away.
