California Registration, holy $hit...

[headred]

'06 325i... Last year 260.00... this year 450.00! Thanks Ah-nold... we're gonna terminate your ass at the next election!

[GordonShumway]

Originally Posted by headred

'06 325i... Last year 260.00... this year 450.00! Thanks Ah-nold... we're gonna terminate your ass at the next election!

Arnold can't run again. And don't forget, Arnold was the one to drop the vehicle taxes down when he took office.

[Tondtar]

CA is in a sh*thole as far as state budget is concerned. I am not happy for paying more for my car's annual registration once again. However, there are few other alternatives left to boots the budget so they won't cut more from essential services like school system, medical care, etc.

No one is happy to pay more than needed but this state continues to expand and grow and accept new residents from all over the country and the world. The rise in cost for providing basic services is going up exponentially while dealing with a sick, staggering economy at the same time. This time around, the whole world is suffering and not much chance of tilting your sales overseas to make up for loss of revenue back home. Less business $$$ = Less taxes paid to state.

It feels like a hopeless situation ...We are all suffering and trying to find ways to deal with it on a daily basis. On a positive side, we still get to enjoy driving the sh*t out of our Bimmers along PCH and canyons to take our minds off all the carp we have to deal with these days ....and thank god for that!

[DANMACINSD]

I think the increases are the result of a new law that went into effect APR 1. I have to look it up but I believe it reads something to the effect of registration costing 1% of total vehicle cost plus applicable state taxes and other shit. I don't know how the figure the value of the vehicle though. Like I said my van is an 06 Odyssey Touring (orig. $39995), blue book is probably right around $24K now.

[DANMACINSD]

Originally Posted by wj4

Hey Dan, long time no talk...how's the car doing?

My registration is not due until next Feb...hopefully it won't be too high.

Speaking of the governor, he showed up at my campus a while back. They closed down the whole lot just for him, made myself and a lot of other students late for class..grr.

Hey Wis, car is doing great...no problems and exhaust is still sounding sweet. I'm leaving for a deployment overseas soon, so no more mods until I get back. Next mod will be wheels though, fo sure.

[Weaselboy]

Here is a screen shot from the CA DMV online calculator on a new $50,000 car purchase.

Using this example one would pay one time purchase sales tax of $4,375, plus the registration of $664 (you can see the breakdown where that goes). In following years one would only owe the $664 registration. It does drop a little each year based on depreciated value of the auto.

In this example, only the $576 vehicle license fee (VLF) is deductible on your income taxes. It is the VLF component that Ah-nold raised to previous levels.

[DANMACINSD]

nice breakout, I knew they had those costs somewhere. It was indeed the VLF that increased. They calculate based on 1% of vehicle value now...which is different.

[Weaselboy]

Yep... VLF went from .65 to 1.15. Half percent increase.

[lib]

Originally Posted by Tondtar

No one is happy to pay more than needed but this state continues to expand and grow and accept new residents from all over the country and the world.

No.

More people move out of CA each year than move to it from another state. It's been that way for a while. CA's population growth is primarily from births & immigration.

The population in CA is definitely growing but it is growing at a much slower pace than a number of other states that attract people from other states in addition to other countries.

http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/pops/pops06.htm

[Maestro]

Yep CA sucks in that way...

When I lived there I remember getting that bill for the very first time on a brand new car I got right out of college and my fist job which happen to be in CA, it was $550 and that was in 88. That was a shock coming from PA which its registration was and still is $36.

Also at the time, I move my Hot Rod 53 Ford to CA at the time which was given to me at 16 by my dad and I fixed it up over the years. I went to register it, and they asked me how much I paid for it which the correct answer was $0 since it was given to me. Well the DMV system would not allow $0 since it calculated registration on the purchase price. I try to use a $1 and it would not allow that, it did allow $100, and at which had a minimum registration of $60

[Incompatible]

Originally Posted by DANMACINSD

All that money into registration and I still have 3 trillion potholes on my way to work.

X2

[JB135i]

Looks like yet another way to "eat the rich".

Keep voting for the Democrats/Liberals and this is what you get...

Do all you guys feel rich? You (most) drive BMW's after all, certainly if you can afford a BMW you can afford to "pay your fair share"!

So sad, I am from Illinois so it's not much better here.

Oh well, it's all cyclical, things will get better again at some point...

[Maestro]

We all bitch about the taxes we pay and how one state is worse than another, and usually CA falls at the top of that list.

When I move to CA from the east I got almost 20% pay increase over anything that was offered to me in the east, at the time the survey data say that San Jose was not that much more expensive then PA where I lived. Spent many years out there got some really nice raises and bonus and stuff, was able to buy a home and have my toys and do my thing. Hated all the taxes I was paying just like everyone else.

Later had the chance to move back east and negotiate a pretty good deal, at least that is what I thought. They finally agreed to pay me exactly what I was getting paid in CA even though the cost of living was suppose to be 80% of that of CA. So I figure I just got a 20% pay increase, plus sign on bonus and lots of stock.

A year later I could not figure out why I was not better off... I started adding everything up and found a very interesting effect. At the end of the day I had about the same amount of money in my pocket as I did in CA. All that happen was where I have pay money shifted around. In CA property Tax was 1% of the purchase price, PA uses some sort of complex formula that allow them to charge you what every they like, so for similar price houses I was paying 5 to 6 times as much property tax in CA, Income tax in CA was 5% to 11% depending on how much you made, in PA it was flat 2.85% but they also tax your 401K contribution unlike CA. Car registration was higher in CA then PA, Sale taxes in PA and CA at the time was about the same, but PA does not tax everything, like CA does. Here was the big surprise, utilities costs in PA was almost 3 times that of CA. PA has older systems and has way more infrastructure costs.

This lists goes on, as it turned out CA was not that much more expensive to live then PA and many other states especially if you trying to live in nicer areas, verse living next to trailer trash.

So be careful what you ask for.

[GT3 Tim]

Mine was $795. Lovely. Gotta luv CA!

On top of the increased registration fees, we have the crapiest gas in the nation too. woo hoo!