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OUCH! - Calif. DMV registration renewal fee

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Worrisome that auto fees/tags are that much.
Is the license fee a biennial renewal, or good for 4 years?
Is there some sort of late fee involved?
The license fee seems to be abnormally wicked high...

If there is any good news, the license fees (only) are tax deductible...
 
Worrisome that auto fees/tags are that much.
Is the license fee a biennial renewal, or good for 4 years?
Is there some sort of late fee involved?
The license fee seems to be abnormally wicked high...

If there is any good news, the license fees (only) are tax deductible...

HAHAHA! (Laughing at the situation, not you)

That price is YEARLY.

Welcome to California. (sigh...)
 
IMHO, such is life in sunny (and drought striken) California, folks.

I was born here, and have lived here most of my life. Californians love our cars, and we get to pay for that (and our climate) via tag registration each year. More expensive vehicles cost more. That's a fact. If you flip cars often, you likely pay the most in the long haul, especially if you prefer luxury rides. If you want environmental or custom plates, you pay more for both on an annual basis. If you keep beaters or even well-loved vehicles like (my, oops,) my Mom's 1997 RAV4 that is now well under $200/year, they will eventually become reasonable each year when your tag renewal comes due.

My S90D (that cost nearly 5X that fully-optioned RAV4 in the day) was $792 in initial registration and licensing fees when I took delivery not a month ago, and I wrote another $79 check this week to transfer my custom plates (from my sold Lexus that had 10 months left on the tag) to my MS when I received the standard plates this week in the mail. It's crazy, but I suppose all States have to pay for our roads and infrastructure some way or other.

In California, we don't have a lot of gambling & mining like NV, or oil like TX, or other such things to subsidize what runs our State, so I just accept it and move on -- including my custom environmental plates that cost me even more than the average Joe every year. The side benefit the past 10 years with my former Lexus hybrids and now my MS here in Cali is, I don't have to pay and go through the every-2-year $50-$100+ smog certification that ICE vehicles do before you then pay for your new tags. I also am not paying some of the highest costs for gasoline in both California (we're typically at least 20+ cents per gallon higher just 60 miles south of Los Angeles) and the nation any more -- even more than I paid in isolated Hawaii when I lived there years ago... but I must fess-up and admit that I do pay close to 25% of my daytime electrical rate for my MS to automatically charge itself each night after midnight if it decides it needs to via my HPWC. ;)
 
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You guys are funny complaining about $800/year. Move to Northern VA. YEARLY "property" car tax (depends on the cost of the car, but for the first few years for the Tesla it's ~$3k+/year, once it depreciates, it gets better)
 
That's pretty insane, I wasn't aware some states would charge so much for that. My current car costs slightly over $100 and does not change in price over time. As far as I know it's a completely flat rate just based on residence. Even with personalized plates, I just have to add $50 onto that price annually.
 
In California, we don't have a lot of gambling & mining like NV, or oil like TX, or other such things to subsidize what runs our State, so I just accept it and move on -- including my custom environmental plates that cost me even more than the average Joe every year. The side benefit the past 10 years with my former Lexus hybrids and now my MS here in Cali is, I don't have to pay and go through the every-2-year $50-$100+ smog certification that ICE vehicles do before you then pay for your new tags. I also am not paying some of the highest costs for gasoline in both California (we're typically at least 20+ cents per gallon higher just 60 miles south of Los Angeles) and the nation any more... but I must fess-up and admit that I do pay close to 25% of my daytime electrical rate for my MS to automatically charge itself each night after midnight if it decides it needs to via my HPWC. ;)

CA is the #3 oil producer in the US. Texas produces about 900,000 barrels and CA produces 500,000. CA taxes it plenty (oil that is). California is also the third highest in the Nation for taxing the fuel, for total tax.

> Tax as pct. of gas price: 17.7% (4th highest)

> State fuel tax: 45.4 cents per gallon (4th highest)

> Gas price: $2.57 (4th highest)

California's gas taxes are among the highest in the nation, with the state charging 45.4 cents for every gallon purchased. However, such high fees may well be justified as more than 29 billion vehicle miles were driven on California roads last October alone, the most of any state. Additionally, more than 36% of the state's bridge surface area was either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete as of 2013, more than in all but a few states. In all, California taxed nearly 10 billion gallons of gas in the first eight months of 2014, well more than any other state, but the taxes collected are not spent on the roads as they were intended.

Its the spending that is out of control!
 
CA is the #3 oil producer in the US. Texas produces about 900,000 barrels and CA produces 500,000. CA taxes it plenty (oil that is). California is also the third highest in the Nation for taxing the fuel, for total tax.

> Tax as pct. of gas price: 17.7% (4th highest)

> State fuel tax: 45.4 cents per gallon (4th highest)

> Gas price: $2.57 (4th highest)

California's gas taxes are among the highest in the nation, with the state charging 45.4 cents for every gallon purchased. However, such high fees may well be justified as more than 29 billion vehicle miles were driven on California roads last October alone, the most of any state. Additionally, more than 36% of the state's bridge surface area was either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete as of 2013, more than in all but a few states. In all, California taxed nearly 10 billion gallons of gas in the first eight months of 2014, well more than any other state, but the taxes collected are not spent on the roads as they were intended.

Its the spending that is out of control!

Perhaps. I won't dispute data points, and won't get into political statements and opinions as that wasn't what I was focusing on, except to say our infrastructure needs to be maintained better than it is, and we (hopefully registered voters) all elect our officials to represent us. ;). I'm out of this discussion and unsubscribed from this thread.
 
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Do you guys pay an excise tax?

Yes, but they call it a fee. It's an amount based on the purchase price of the vehicle, with the proportion reducing each year until year 11+.
Seems to start at 1.15% (supposedly an emergency rate that was never decreased) and declines, it appears, to 0.173%.
(In contrast Maine starts at 2.4% and declines to 0.4% in year 6+).

This is the table for standard vehicles:
Forms
 
Yes, this is the yearly California car tax that we affectionately know as the VLF. It does go down every year per depreciation of the car, but not as accelerated as you'd like. This is why often, when people buy and sell used cars, there is pressure to under-report the actual amount (people will say they bought a car for $5,000) since there is no review. The VLF is based on the value of the car as stated. Of course, falsifying such things would be against the law. In spirit. Probably just against. :)

- K
 
HAHAHA! (Laughing at the situation, not you)

That price is YEARLY.

Welcome to California. (sigh...)
Not entirely true. It diminishes every year based on the value of the car - as determined by whom, I'm not sure.

- - - Updated - - -

Moving to CA next year... not looking forward to this. Doesn't it get substantially cheaper in the following years, though?
And note, from a fellow Native Texan who chose CA for substantial reasons, you cannot deduct the price of your trade-in from a new car to diminish the taxes paid on the new car. They need their taxes and they get them. I am okay with that. Texas did not give me enough for all that property tax we paid.