Calculator Discrepancy

I was wondering if anyone could explain this calculator discrepancy to me. I was able to replicate what the dealer tells me using Leasematic on my phone, but not on leasehackr using all the same numbers.

Here is the leasematic sheet:

And then here is the LH calc:

If you roll in those taxes, its still $5 short.

The taxes are different in both. The sales tax due upfront on the calculator is $2231 vs $2395.24 on your sheet. The $164 difference is about $5/mo.

Yup. Issue is with how the ny tax amount is being calculated. If you manually enter the taxes, it matches

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Right, and I’m wondering where that difference comes from. The tax rate is set the same on both.

The leasematic matches the dealer quote to the penny.

that link you shared also matches up damn near perfectly with the dealer quote, its within .50c.

The difference is almost equal to the rebate $2,000 being taxed at 8.875%

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It is weird though because the rebate is entered as a taxable rebate. My bet would be that is just how the respective programs are set up to calculate tax. I know for IL the LH calculator is usually a few dollars off since certain government fees are taxed and others are not, but the calculator would not know that if you entered the sum of all the fees.

That’s a good point.

Also, in NY, any fee that isn’t already a tax, can be taxed. So acq, doc, etc, can all be taxed, that might be happening here already, but I can tell you that on leasematic I am able to select to tax the acq and doc, I don’t know if the LH calc does that. Maybe someone from @tech_crew knows?

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I spent a bunch of time trying to figure it out manually, but I can’t. Drives me nuts, lol.

Acq fees and dealer fees are taxed on LH’s calculator. You can’t select to exclude those taxes at the moment. You can only select how it is taxed.

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Still doesn’t seem to match for some reason. They both should be taxed in this case and you’re saying they do get taxed… Odd…

I could be wrong but in NY if the main tax is capped, then that line item is also taxed. It’s effed up but might explain the discrepancy

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Yeah the calculator doesn’t capitalize sales tax.

I am curious: your Leasematic sheet’s sales tax is $2395.24, which means its tax base is $26988.62. How does it come to that figure?

I can’t figure out what you mean mathematically (how you tax that line item and it matches up), but I did see this in the State-by-state settings that leasematic has automatically set:

They have “Taxes capitalized tax” set, which I think is what you mean.

If anyone can explain to me how that works math wise, I’d love to know, because I don’t know how they get to that amount, even knowing that they are 'taxing capitalized tax".

Yes that’s what @max_g meant.

It seems like Leasematic assumes that the lessee is financing the tax. In that case, there are many ways to the dealer could determine the tax base. I am not sure how Leasematic calculates the tax base. Do you have the lease worksheet from the dealer?

I’ll see if I can get it, just had a basic breakdown.

Also, it doesn’t assume that. There’s a “cap sales tax” option on the settings for the deal. If you select that, you get what I shared above, if you don’t cap the tax and pay it at signing, then it shows tax at 2,199.68

Further update from the creator of Leasematic:

“This setting only applies to New York. NY is one of those states that requires tax to be paid upfront. That’s the only state that charges tax on tax if you don’t pay sales tax upfront and decide to roll it in your monthly payment.”

I deleted an earlier post when I thought I had answered your question with exact figures…turns out this stuff is more complicated than it looks.

I googled “NY lease tax laws” and this LH post was the first result

Using his formula, I calculated the tax amount to be $2,405.57, or about 10 bucks from the Leasematic sales tax figure (you’ll be able to see how I got there below, but I used a total lease cost of 24,684.15 (Line item 7 below) * (0.00875/(1-0.00875)), as per the formula he provided. You can also see the language he references in Publication 839: A Dealer’s Guide to Sales and Use Taxes on Long-Term Motor Vehicle Leases in New York State on page 17.

I then used my own worksheet to reach an equally close, yet incorrect value of $2,392.35 by calculating the tax as if it were paid upfront, and then adding that up-front tax value back into a new tax calculation in which that tax is capitalized and then taxed again. In both cases, the doc fee is excluded as per the above dealer’s guide. Here’s what I got:

(EDIT: Ignore these figures. Corrections below)

In the relatively simple example @IAC_Scott posted, I’m equally dumbfounded that we cant arrive at the same number, given how few inputs there are here.

Let me know what you guys think.

Leasematic has since revised its tax figure… it now matches the formula outlined in the NY tax guide, although @IAC_Scott said Leasematic’s original figure matches the dealer’s? Is the dealer using Leasematic too?

@Rsantoro12 for your “NY - Upfront Tax”, you didn’t subtract the $2000 rebate and capitalize the acq fee in item #2?

As for the purpose of calculating the tax only, you would ignore the taxable rebate (I.e. taxed on the full gross cap cost before the rebate), no?

“Manufacturers’ rebates (e.g., a rebate on the purchase of a car or an appliance) are not deductible from the amount of the taxable receipt. This is so whether the rebate is assigned to or paid to the seller at the time of sale, or later paid directly to the purchaser by the manufacturer. Even though the purchaser’s out-of-pocket expense is reduced by the amount of the rebate, the price paid to the seller is not. In effect, the manufacturer is subsidizing the consumer’s purchase, and the full sales price is subject to sales tax.” (Source: NY Tax)

I apologize if it was unclear, but my goal was to use the numbers to show how I arrived at the taxable figure and subsequent taxes, per your question below

Line 18 and 19 come fairly close to that answer, but something is clearly wrong.

In the Final Lease section, you can see that I accurately subtract the rebate in line 2, as well as add DAS costs to land at the total lease cost of ~$25,250 that Scott posted in his original screenshot

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