Hey guys here’s my situation. My wife has a 2019 Infiniti QX50 with about $6000 equity in it currently. I went to Carmax today and was told IFS won’t allow their leased cars to be sold to any dealers except their own anymore. So I’m trying to figure out if I have any options. My wife wants a Volvo XC60 so was thinking I could trade it in, but I’m not sure if that will be allowed anymore since they’re not allowing the sale of their leased vehicles to any other dealerships besides their own. So would that option be out of the question as well?
Other option is to do a lease buyout, but I’m not sure about the tax issues with that option. If I purchase the car and then want to turn around and sell it to Carmax am I going to have to pay sales tax on the lease buyout amount?
Thanks for any advice on my situation!
Yes. That’s your only option if you want to sell the car AFAIK.
The buyout price is around $26k. So I’ll have to pay sales tax on that amount?
Try Autonation Nissan if they can buy IFS leases. You can get an online quote.
I will do that! Thanks
I spoke with the Autonation Nissan and they said they COULD buy the leased Infiniti from me. I’m a little worried the information I got was not correct. Hopefully that was accurate. Going in on Tuesday so I’ll report back if that works
Did they match the Carvana offer?
They said I need to bring the car in. They did a KBB quote and it was $2k less than the Carmax quote. I will be bringing the car and the Carmax offer with me Tuesday. Problem I see is when I told them about the Carmax offer he said he didn’t think I could sell to Carmax. So apparently they’re actually aware of the policy.
Get an online offer before going in. Sell My Car | Sell or Trade Your Car Online | AutoNation
Keep in mind they are not the only Nissan dealer in FL. You have other dealers to get quotes too.
I just went through this process last week trading in a QX30. Maybe you will have better luck than me. I had about $4,000 in equity based on $21,000 pay off. By the time I were to pay sales tax on the pay off and wait for title work, profit would have been marginal. I did not have much luck finding an Infiniti dealer that would cash me out of my lease early, only willing to apply it towards a new lease. Add to that the $1,000 Infiniti loyalty bonus and I decided to just roll it into another Infiniti lease. Basically had a $5,000 incentive to stay with Infiniti. Good luck either way.
Does FL give tax credit on trade-ins? So if a Volvo dealer is willing to match your carmax/carvana/vroom offer, you can buy it out and pay the tax, but when you trade it in, you get that tax credited to your new car anyway, so it is a wash.
Not on a lease, yes on a purchase
Yes there is trade in tax credit but he will need to purchase his new car I’m guessing. Leasing the second car may not work.
Can you post the details in “Share a Deal”?
They don’t give credit for trade-in on a lease but do on a purchase? That’s odd. But FL is indeed odd in many ways.
Florida does monthly use tax on a lease rather than an upfront sales tax. I don’t think there are any states that provided a trade in credit when taxed monthly.
See details here:
Well after talking to several different Infiniti dealers the only way to take advantage of the equity is to trade in the car and put the equity towards the next purchase. They will not buy the leased vehicle, pay off the lease and then cut me a personal check for the difference. I’ve spoken to three different dealers and that’s what they’re all saying. I’m assuming this is coming from Infiniti higher ups. Everytime I’ve called and spoken to a salesperson they say yeah sure no problem and then when it moves to the manager that’s when they all give the same story. So basically my only option to take advantage of the equity is to purchase another car and roll that equity into the next one. It’s about $6,000 in equity. Would hate to just throw that away.
Good luck with your search. The Infiniti offerings are a little limited right now. If you are in the Sarasota or Fort Myers area, I can send you my dealer contacts. I was able to get 5% off MSRP, before incentives and a fair value for my trade, which seems reasonable in this market.
If you have $6,000 in equity and you purchase your car at 7% sales tax then subtract the $1820 and also subtract the “buy out fee from dealer” that FL mandates. Even if it was $1180 then you still have $3,000 in equity.
Yes, I’m aware it takes time to process transaction, get title, etc…and your counting in the market not dropping by $3,000 in the weeks it takes to get this done. For a possible $3,000 I would roll the dice and do this. Given that your risk / reward matrix may be different though.