lol we are in Dallas and I don’t think I’ve seen any CA plates. It’s rare at least. Drivers here are nuts anyway.
1 Like
Paper plates as far as the eye can see
lol, I’m living in New Delhi, TX, I know what you’re saying…
2 Likes
Montana plates around the DFW area on Bentleys/Ferraris/etc.
[quote=“Brons2, post:40, topic:629007”]So here is how tax credits work.
Let’s say you lease a 50K car. In order to originate the lease you must pay 6.25% tax on the full 50K. (Technically and legally the lessor should pay it, but they always just pass the cost to the lessee). So you (the lessee) need to cough up $3125 to the State of Texas in order to register the vehicle…
[/quote]
Had no clue this was a thing that was even possible. I’m assuming since luxury makes generally lease more that they would be more inclined to offer something like this?
Not necessarily only exclusive to luxury makes. I listen to a radio show Saturday morning on AM570 and the Honda dealer that has a spot on the show states fairly often that they have sales tax credits available on some models.
Supposedly they are not allowed to state that in a print/online ad but can verbally state it on the radio/etc. At least that’s what I think I’ve heard them say before on air. I don’t know if this is something legal or something that the lender doesn’t allow to be advertised.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that it is the special six months right now that happens every two years where you can in fact complain to your two Texas representatives and they can actually do something.
2 Likes
Any auto brand that offers leases in Texas will also offer tax credits. (I think Tesla and Rivian MAY be exceptions to this rule, but that’s because they do not operate true dealerships in the state. Maybe somebody can chime in and confirm this.)
However, luxury car dealers tend to originate more leases than other car brands so they may have more tax credits to throw around.
The power that you have is in the information. Now that you know that tax credits are available, it’s just a matter of asking for them to be applied to your deal. Pretty please…?
Great insight. Thanks for sharing!
Planning to do this but was curious as to why Texas is even the way it is. What was the incentive for doing it how we do it?
Not having a state income tax, for one…
2 Likes
The dealer can only apply a sales tax credit if it’s being offered by the lender. For example, if Honda Financial is only offering sales tax credits on the Civic and CRV, then you cannot get a sales tax credit on the Accord. It’s not quite as easy as asking “pretty please.” The lender determines what model(s) they want to offer them on.
4 Likes
Is there resources online to see what lender is offering sales tax credits at a certain time? Since each lender has a different percentage they offer, and they are not available all year long. Would be nice to know what lenders are offering credits and at what rate.
Just word of mouth.
But for real, that information is not published anywhere. You have to ask the dealer or they have to disclose it to you. I’ve found that non luxury make dealers often times don’t even know what sales tax credits are. I don’t know if it’s ignorance or dishonesty.
1 Like
Does anyone know what lenders are offering credits as of right now?
I can tell you in no uncertain terms that BMWFS is currently not offering lender tax credits.
1 Like
Over the last year or so Infiniti has been pretty liberal with offering sales tax credits. I don’t know for sure what the status is now. Through the latter half of '24 my Infiniti dealer was trying to convince me to get out of my QX80 lease early and each time there were sales tax credits on the deals they proposed. When I turned the QX80 back into the dealer in September, they offered me another deal with sales tax credits. So, Infiniti may be a good place to look.
Someone recently (March) posted a Volvo XC90 plug in hybrid deal in TX and there were partial sales tax credits on that deal. It was not the refreshed '25.5 model though.
1 Like
Thank you SO much for this explanation. As someone who only buys BMWs with tax credits, I always wondered how they worked. Lord knows the dealership used up a crap ton when they wiped out my tax burden on the i7 I bought in December. HAHA
You’re welcome. I think BMW saves them up during the course of the year and then blows them out during December. When we got a BMW we also got a tax credit during December. A data point for anybody considering a BMW lease:
wait until the end of the year to get a tax credit since that seems to be how they get apportioned.
1 Like