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California Purchase Laws my have just ruined my MS85 AP1 purchase!
- Thread starter NateGordonJr
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- California Model S Texas
NateGordonJr, I believe we have found your answer. You will need to move to Oregon. Tesla Motors Club to the rescue yet again!
You might be onto something.. I have always wanted to watch a PAC-10 prime time game w/o falling asleep
pdxgibby
Software Engineer
TaoJones
Beyond Driven
As an out of stater, are you not just subject to the CA *state* sales/use tax rather than the local add-on?
Not that it makes a huge amount of difference.
Not that it makes a huge amount of difference.
I bought my Demo Tesla out of state, wanted to avoid delivery charge/delay, temporary plates and multi-jurisdiction sales tax tango.
Asked Tesla to process the purchase in my home state, allow me to pick up the car in its local Service Center with my home state license plate, registration and sales tax. Since they're a national sales organization, they obliged. Flew to the other city, stayed with friends, went to Tesla for Delivery, drove back to friends' place, celebratory steak dinner, second overnight, then my friend and I drove to my place in one long day with my state's plate attached.
Different than a local franchise that has no presence in different states.
Asked Tesla to process the purchase in my home state, allow me to pick up the car in its local Service Center with my home state license plate, registration and sales tax. Since they're a national sales organization, they obliged. Flew to the other city, stayed with friends, went to Tesla for Delivery, drove back to friends' place, celebratory steak dinner, second overnight, then my friend and I drove to my place in one long day with my state's plate attached.
Different than a local franchise that has no presence in different states.
I’m assuming you aren’t saying you bought in Cali (otherwise I feel like you would’ve simply come out and said so). That said, I feel as though this would work in any other state, besides Cali based on all previous replies.
whitex
Well-Known Member
Can you get it on a 24-hr test drive, drive it to the nearest out of state gallery (Nevada, Oregon), return it there, then decide to purchase it from that gallery instead?
deonb
Active Member
Yes, that's nice of you. I did that when I bought my RV. Drove to TX from WA, picked up the RV, drove back to WA.
Even though I had to pay $10k in taxes in WA when I registered it, I feel better giving that money to my local state. And TX in return got to have all my business for everything I bought when I was there, and collected taxes on that.
Don't know why CA doesn't see it this way - especially with OR right over the border. Surely they must be able to increase vehicle shopping tourism by at least a factor of 10 from OR if they stopped charging sales tax on those.
I don't mind high sales taxes - prefer that to income tax. But CA is just shooting themselves in the foot on principle here.
You can do that, but a tesla employee will need to go with you, it must be on a dealer plate, and the car would be on their insurance until the sale is completed. Tesla is not likely to agree.
Yes. If you take possession of the car in California, you have to pay sales tax. It's normal for most goods, but it's unusual for cars, since most sates have a sales tax exemption for cars purchased to be taken out of state. Because California has high sales taxes, OOS buyers won't buy-and-drive out of California even if their state gives a credit for taxes paid to California.
To get around this, some car dealers for other makes will deliver to just over the border for OOS buyers.
T34ME
Active Member
And therein lies the problem with Oregon being a zero sales tax State. Too much potential for abuse. I worked in retail for years and there was always someone from "oregon" who didn't want to pay California sales (use) tax.
I guess that's how California got to be the 5th largest economy in the world from the verge of bankruptcy just 8 years ago. Californicans continue to vote in favor of taxing themselves (and out of State visitors) because they can see the value of a robust State economy. If you don't want to pay California sales taxes, purchase your Tesla in Portland, OR (and don't bring it back to California for 6 months if you are a California resident).
You conflating issues. Fact is that we never collect sales tax from OOS car buyers because they don't take delivery here. If we were smart, we would not tax those purchases and instead would get a tourism boost from those buyers coming here to pick up their cars. German car makers so it all the time.
I had the exact same scenario when I bought my CPO earlier this year - car was in Cali and the initial choice was to either pay the additional CA tax or pay the $2000 delivery to St. Louis. After chatting with my OA, the solution was to come up with a closer destination that was still in the 'free' delivery region (basically, how far East would they ship it for free?) and then drive the car back myself - which ended up being Phoenix - thus avoiding both the CA tax, and the delivery charge. I would suggest bringing this up with your OA, as PHX would be even closer to TX than CA, and you get a sweet road trip out of it (we enjoyed driving through Sedona etc on the way back). The crew at the PHX (technically Tempe) SC were great to work with there as well.
I guess it's question of numbers -- or more aptly in this case: dollars. I have to believe the tax revenue gleaned from sales of cars in CA is on a different order magnitude from the boost to the local tourism industry from someone coming in from out of state to pick purchase a car in CA.
CA already has a very robust tourist industry to begin with.. they don't need the odd Tesla buyer to come in and spend on the local economy. they have scores of people who do that already as tourists.
It makes sense to me, and I think those pesky politicians have a good handle on what is better for their state. But thats just MNSHO.
Still, I too believe that CA should allow people to register in their own state and pay sales tax there.
Why would you need a Tesla employee to go with you? When they let people take a 24-hour test drive they just let them drive off with the car by themselves. It seems like a perfectly good work-around to me.
State representative from Fremont disagreed with you last year and introduced a law to change the sales tax rules but it got shot down.
I guess that's why all of this caught me off guard because I live in a state where you're free to come and purchase, see the monuments, and be on your merry way back home with no strings attached.
I'd be delighted to take delivery in Portland, but the OA said to move the car out of the state, it would still cost $1,000 so it appears they've caught on to people moving the vehicle in range of 'free transport' and then taking delivery.
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