Note that this $32,000 sales tax deduction is no longer available.
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Note that this $32,000 sales tax deduction is no longer available.
Yes, I know, I was trying to show how the tradein was accounted for, however I felt I needed to explain all reductions of sales tax in my document.
How’d you get the RTA registration fee waived? Live outside of RTA area? I’m jealous haha.
RTA only covers parts of King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties. @Daniellane lives here in Clark County.
We moved down here from Kent in 2003 mostly because my SO wanted to go back to the Portland area (she grew up in SE Portland), but the traffic and getting taxed for the boondoggle RTA were also issues for us. There is an anti-tax contingent here in Clark County that is a bit too much the other way for my tastes. The I-5 bridge needs replacing and there has been talk of a new bridge across the Columbia, but both have been repeatedly stopped by the anti-tax contingent in Clark County who basically want new bridges, but want someone else to foot the entire bill.
Everyplace in the world has some kind of problems.
Anti-tax contingent in Clark County? Shocking.
I mean who would have ever thought that those type of people would want to live in a place with no state income tax and no sales tax just miles away?
So true. The RTA tax is absurd up here in King County. I don’t mind paying taxes but it’s insane.
We've got to implement better transit in the Seattle region somehow. (I understand we had a chance at a mostly federal funded transit system in the 70s but voted it down).
I could sure use the annual $500 RTA tax (or whatever it is) on other things, but know it's going for a critical piece of infrastructure the region will use for years to come. And selfishly, the more people that use the new regional transit network for commuting, the more road space will be available for me and my Tesla (when I'm not using transit myself of course).
I could sure use the annual $500 RTA tax (or whatever it is) on other things, but know it's going for a critical piece of infrastructure the region will use for years to come. And selfishly, the more people that use the new regional transit network for commuting, the more road space will be available for me and my Tesla (when I'm not using transit myself of course).
We should end all oil subsidies and put that money into infrastructure and alternative fuel incentives.
Credible estimates of annual United States fossil fuel subsidies range from $10 billion to $52 billion annually – yet none of these include costs borne by taxpayers related to the climate, local environmental, and health impacts of the fossil fuel industry.
deonb
Active Member
I haven't done this with a car but I did do this with an RV last year. Sold one RV to an out of state buyer, bought another RV (out of state as well). When I registered the new one they charged me sales tax (or use tax I suppose) on the difference between the two rather than the full amount.
Whether it works that way with cars or I state purchases I don know. It definitely does on tradeins.
The anti-taxers are becoming a smaller percentage of the population as people move to Clark Co from Portland for other reasons. The public schools in Clark Co are much better than Portland. Camas and Washougal school districts are rated very high.
Gay marriage was also legal in Washington for a few years before Oregon, so a number of gay couples moved to Vancouver. There are also quite a few people who have just been priced out of the Portland housing market who moved to Clark County.
The anti-tax people's position is weakening, but they controlled the Vancouver City Council for many years. I don't know if the Puget Sound region saw it, but our property taxes just about doubled last year because of a state supreme court ruling that the schools were not being funded correctly. We had a lot of school levies still in effect, so the increase hit most in this county hard. A number of the levies expired this year so the taxes went down a little, but they are still high.
I heard some complaints about the higher taxes, but not as much as I expected.
I don't mind paying taxes for something that benefits people, but when it's wasted, it chaps my hide.
RTA has been a mess from day 1. They hadn't broken ground when we moved here and they were already $1 billion over budget. It was estimated the light rail RTA was planning on building would only take a small percentage of the increase in transit during the time they were building the lines.
I read in the Seattle Times back in the early 90s about the freeway wars of the 60s and 70s. There were visionaries in both Seattle and Portland who foresaw the growth of those cities and proposed road building programs while property was cheap to meet the coming needs. In Portland the visionaries won out and the roads were built. So was the light rail before it was desperately needed, though both are maxed out now.
In Seattle the "keep Seattle small" contingent won out. These people argued that if the roads weren't expanded, nobody would move to Seattle. They were very wrong and people moved there anyway. Also a group of experimentalists got a hold of what traffic planning was done and made a bunch of traffic experiments around the Seattle area.
As traffic patterns changed in the region, the planners still haven't caught up to reality. When we left there were people pointing out that the entire transit system in the Puget Sound region is designed to move people into Seattle in the morning and out in the evening, when the bulk of the commuter trips were between suburbs, or out of Seattle in the morning and into Seattle in the evening. There are a lot of people who live in Seattle and work in Redmond.
The mass transit system is also set up for this. I worked for King County Metro in their monitoring center for a bit. They have a system where former bus drivers stay in contact with all the bus drivers on the street and monitor where the buses are in real time. The system was built just before GPS became available to the public, so it was a lot more complicated than it needed to be. I hope they have replaced it with a GPS based system since.
In any case the entire system was focused on getting people into Seattle in the mornings and out in the evenings with a few extra buses as afterthoughts and they were not willing to consider anything else. There was a bus that ran a block from my house in Kent, but only had a couple of pick ups in the morning and a couple of drop offs in the evening. It only ran into downtown Seattle. Almost everyone in my neighborhood worked in Renton (Boeing or Kenworth mostly), around Seatac, or Bellevue/Redmond. When I landed my first gig in Redmond I looked at how to take the bus there. I gave up after the 4th transfer and 3 hours travel time. So I was stuck on I-405 with everyone else.
Portland's traffic has been getting worse. Fortunately I don't need to go into Portland during weekdays very often, but I loath going to Tesla service. When I have to I try to schedule mid-day so I can get out before traffic gets too bad. Portland did plan their light rail system fairly well. It goes to and from places people want/need to go. But the trains are often packed. Sometimes if we have something in downtown Portland we will drive to a station near the airport (nearest station to us) and ride the train in.
It would be even better if they extended the light rail into Clark Co, but so far the anti-tax people have blocked that. The excuse is that the light rail would bring in the "wrong element" to which my SO says "what commuters?" The poor are already moving to Clark Co because housing is cheaper, they just wouldn't be driving the 1985 Camry anymore to go to work.
Leafdriver333
Somewhat Active Member
If the WA state implements some kind of tax break for new EV purchases later this year, would it cover all purchases made this year since Jan 1, 2019?
If they do implement a tax break it will probably go into effect some time after the law is passed. That's the normal way these things work. So if you already bought the car, you're probably out of luck.
Leafdriver333
Somewhat Active Member
I see...
I am taking delivery possibly this weekend.
Do you have level 2 charging at home?
If so, who did you hire to get that installed and how much did it cost?
Thank you.
I have an HPWC and it's great. Tesla had a list of recommended contractors locally and I used one out of Portland, but we just had some electric work done elsewhere in the house last week and we used Compass Electric in Vancouver. They were great and they have a free 2 hours of work coupon on Angie's List if you have a subscription to that. The electrician indicated he had installed car chargers.
Our electrical panel was maxed out and we had to replace the old panel with a new commercial one when we had the charger installed, so that made it more expensive, but I can't remember what the installation itself cost. I think it was 2-3 hours work, but the charger is right next to the panel, so the run was short. The work Compass did for us last week was install two new 20A circuits for computing equipment (we almost had a fire when we had the snow in February and we lost power, a UPS shorted out so badly it welded the plug into the socket) and it was around $650 for parts and labor with the coupon.
At the end of quarter rush Tesla is not the greatest at explaining everything about the car. I suggest joining PDX Tesla:
PDX Tesla
The site is out of date but they have a Facebook group, Google Group and a number of events throughout the year. This weekend there is a car care clinic in Beaverton at a detail shop, but I'm not going to make that. There are also drives throughout the year. Last year there were drives to Mt St Helens, up the Gorge, and we did the Hood River Fruit Loop. If you have questions about how the car works and want someone local to show you, there are always helpful people in the local group.
Our electrical panel was maxed out and we had to replace the old panel with a new commercial one when we had the charger installed, so that made it more expensive, but I can't remember what the installation itself cost. I think it was 2-3 hours work, but the charger is right next to the panel, so the run was short. The work Compass did for us last week was install two new 20A circuits for computing equipment (we almost had a fire when we had the snow in February and we lost power, a UPS shorted out so badly it welded the plug into the socket) and it was around $650 for parts and labor with the coupon.
At the end of quarter rush Tesla is not the greatest at explaining everything about the car. I suggest joining PDX Tesla:
PDX Tesla
The site is out of date but they have a Facebook group, Google Group and a number of events throughout the year. This weekend there is a car care clinic in Beaverton at a detail shop, but I'm not going to make that. There are also drives throughout the year. Last year there were drives to Mt St Helens, up the Gorge, and we did the Hood River Fruit Loop. If you have questions about how the car works and want someone local to show you, there are always helpful people in the local group.
DanL3
Member
I Put in my Own. This thread is not the place to discuss this, so PM me if you want more detail.
