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West Coast Dealers at Below Invoice?

kayakmike

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This is 100% correct. If the dealer collects their own local tax, then CA will only collect CA tax minus why you paid elsewhere (if CA has a reciprocity deal with that state). Very likely though, the dealer won't collect any tax at all because they're delivering outside of their own state line. CA will then collect all the tax they normally do like the bloodsucking tax-vampire that they are. Really the only added fee is the delivery fee which should never be more than a $1000 coast to coast, but in a scenario like this you don't get to choose your service and shop around, so you might pay a bit more.
So basically buying out of state, doesn't really save me much (i.e. not paying sales tax if bought in OR), unless that specific dealer has a better price?

Thanks.
Technically, buying out of state doesn't save you anything. In fact it costs more. But, in CA, none of the dealers are offering below MSRP, much less below invoice. So when I order through Travis, I get 5-7% under invoice, which saves me like $7-8k off MSRP (+ the tax on that amount). But then I pay the $1k or so for delivery... So in the end I should still be about $6-7k better off. If a local dealer was offering 5% below invoice I wouldn't have any reason to do this.
So when Kent @ Peterson (Nampa, ID) first drew up my paperwork, he used my San Diego address, and included state/county/city sales tax on the paperwork. So, I would guess most dealers would collect sales tax based on your address, and DMV would make any corrections when you go and register. I had bought a Yamaha Rhino out of state once, and when I went to register it I had to pay the difference in sales tax (CA - what was paid out of state) when I went to register it at the DMV. CA will collect their taxes one way or another.

Like @trez63 says, the real savings is from getting better purchase prices. Traditionally SoCal dealers rarely deal (even with tons of inventory sitting on their lots). Even though none of the San Diego dealers have JTs yet, just talking to them you can tell the ADM is going to be insane. You have to weigh if it's worth the extra effort (travel time & costs) to buy from a non-local dealer. I've bought from LA area dealers if they gave better deals than San Diego area, but that's not too far of a drive. For the JT, Kent wasn't too far away and definitely worth the extra effort. If Spencer in IA or Travis in NC were closer, probably would have considered them too.
 
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trez63

trez63

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Do your research though, in some states, you can't take delivery of the vehicle inside that state without having to pay that state's sales tax and possibly even registering there. In CA, dealers will deliver the vehicle outside of state line just to avoid this. That's why you might be better of having it delivered to you by truck, rather than going there to take delivery. Anyway, do your research.
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