Just for argument’s sake…
If we take a hypothetical $50k car with a 50% RV on a 3 year lease, in Texas, you’d pay ~6% tax on the whole lease, so $3k.
In much of CA, you’ll pay ~10% tax on the depreciated value/rent charge/etc, so $2500 or so. Add in $1500ish in registration over 3 years, and it doesn’t take much for Texas registration amounts to make it a cheaper place to lease if you look at total lease cost.
Obviously, one could run actual numbers to get a more accurate picture.
Thanks for saying this. 6% tax on whole lease amount isnt that terrible compared to 10% on depreciation amount
It’s still worse, but it’s not THAT much worse, and a huge registration fee is just more taxes spread out annually.
Does TX not have annual registration fees? Every state I’ve lived in has some annual reg fees
Oh, I’m sure they probably do, but most states are a fraction of what CA is.
This is one of the dumbest threads on LHF…
“Reg was paid in TX so why would I need to pay it in CA?”
Couldn’t be bothered to google either an exact or ballpark number for CA reg.
Doesn’t care about state income tax or COL, but the relative pittance of reg is such a hardship that I’ll move a couple thousand miles
Sometimes being reminded of more ways you’re getting bent over can help bring some clarity.
Maybe but I doubt it in this case. Guaranteed the OP was unaware of TX’s lease taxation structure when they assumed it would be cheaper there.
It’s all subjective. On my XC60, the registration renewal last month was $500. If it was $1000 and Texas was $0, I wouldn’t move.
When I lived in VA and paid the car tax, I still leased, just less expensive cars (I had an Accord I financed before the WRX and Mazda3). There are a lot of reasons to leave a state, or choose to move to another state, I don’t see how the cost of your car registration even makes the list.
Sure, I just find it a bit amusing when people talk about how much more expensive leases in Texas are than in CA because of the sales tax. By the time you factor in the non-tax “taxes”, it really isn’t the different, it just isn’t all up front.
You have to hack it either way. A $300 payment on that car makes CA’s total state cut a lot lower than TX’s
OTOH tax credits make it vice versa.
But like @jeisensc said it’s way way down on the list of reasons to move
Obviously, not all cases are the same. My wife’s XC90 is $618/mo after tax, so about $574 before taxes, which means we will $1584 in taxes for 36 months. The equivalent in TX would have been over $3600.
I just did quick math, and assuming the registration in TX is $0, with CA reg and tax on my lease payment I am $1,024 less over 36 months living where I prefer. And I’ve never once made a joke about how Texas taxes the lease.
Now roll in the non-tax “taxes”
so $30/mo different, compared to the $100/mo a lot of people say it adds… that’s the point. Obviously it varies by vehicle, where in CA you are, etc and is a bigger delta with some vs others.
Doc fee is $85, registration fee is ~$650. I don’t know how much TX registration fee is, but in my case, taxes still come out cheaper in CA.
Registration on a that 3 year lease is ~$1800, not $650. It’s just $650 upfront for the first year. That’s the point I’m trying to make. By the time you pay that ridiculous amount every year, you’re closing the big tax gap when looking at total lease cost.
The annual registration fee in TX is about $60, depending on county/local fees, so you’re paying a lot more in taxes, but you’re saving $1600 in registration fees.
If we use my Palisade as an example, as I know the numbers off hand, total tax/registration cost if I got it for the same price in TX would be about $2550 over 3 years. In CA, the sales tax and 3 years of registration on it would have been about $3400.
It would have saved me about $800 to pay TX taxes on it vs leasing it in CA.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that this is a reason to move out of CA, or that TX leasing is cheaper, just that there’s more to the numbers than most give credit to.
Seriously? Even in IL and IN, on a MSRP 20k car worth 10K (5 years old), I was paying ~200/year. Eff TX is cheap
Just going off the listing in the TX DMV of the fee schedule. There certainly could be some fees they’re not showing in that that I’m not accounting for.
Im paying 600/year here in cali…lol. Like everyone says, car reg shudnt be on the list of reasons to move.