2016 Leaf SV vs. WA state sales tax

So it looks like if you want a 107 mile Leaf, you need to buy at least a Leaf SV.

However, the SV price is $35050, which is $50 more than the WA state sales tax exemption. That raises the price of the Leaf by $3500! Argh.

Even if Nissan realizes this and gives a $51 discount on the SV, and you were to add a single option (e.g. a camera), it will be over that again.


Does anybody know if you do a trade-in how this rule works? So e.g. if I trade in a $5000 vehicle, would it still be considered over the cutoff, or does it lower the vehicle price to $30'000, making it eligible? I know you'd only pay sales tax on $30'000, but I'd really prefer it to be exempt of course...

Any other way around this ridiculous situation?

We bought a 2016 Leaf SV with Premium for $34'700 last night (down from MSRP $36'620 / dealer invoice $35'400). So managed to get around the $35'000 limit without any real issue. Yay!

So it seems like if you're ~$2000 or less over, you can just "negotiate" it down to below $35k.

But speaking to the salesman, it does seam that dealers generally found a way even to sell SL Premiums (MSRP $39'210) below the $35'000 WA sales tax limit. From what I can read between the lines it seems they sell the car and the leather seats as two separate items.


Actually, at the moment if you finance through Nissan you get 0% interest and a $3'500 rebate, so we've only actually paid $31'200. That rebate would also put the final price you have to pay for an SL under $35'000 - BUT it doesn't lower the invoice price. So dealers still need to be creative to get the SL under $35'000. I'm not sure why Nissan plays this financing game - they don't make any additional money on 0% financing - why not just lower the price of the car?