Jun 12th, 2007
DC Excise Tax (aka getting kicked in the testicles once again by DC)
I never knew what it was like to get kicked in the balls by someone with the leg strength of a professional soccer player until I decided to go into the DMV about a month ago to register my car in DC.
Click to view my blood pressure rising
First off let me warn all those who are considering this act to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T REGISTER YOUR CAR IN DC.
Basically, if you buy your car out of state and then register your car in DC, there is something they call ‘Title Excise Tax.’ I call this ’sodomy with a nine-iron.’ I was charged $796.25 to register my car in DC.
Breath that in for one second.
You have to pay an absolutely ridiculous amount of money to the DC government just so you can have the luxury of driving your car on their torn-up roads, get a constant barrage of parking tickets, and have to deal with absolute neanderthals each and every time you need to interact with anyone who works at the DMV.
Basically, there are some clever ways around the DC excise tax (PDF) that I urge you to familiarize yourself with before you even think about registering your car in DC, although I would recommend you to think about simply keeping the car registered wherever you got it and paying for a parking garage because it will honestly be cheaper.
[...] Don’t register your car in DC. The $796 excise tax rant at Drift Reality. [...]
Driftreality,
I don’t live in DC, but have bought a vehicle in one state while living in another and paid a tax, but not that excessive. I think it was $250 or a little more. It’s been a long time.
From my limited understanding, a state or jurisdiction is basically recovering sales tax had you bought the car there. My god, though, DC is gouging the hell out of people. Plus, I don’t believe there are many car dealerships in DC, so I’m sure they are making a killing. Where in the hell is the money going?
I have heard DMV horror stories from a few of my friends who live in the District. Hopefully things will get better with the new administration.
Ouch. Sorry.
I feel your pain. MD has the excise tax, too. I recently moved from VA to MD, and in January I had to pay $499 to have MD plates for a year and for the MD excise tax, plus another $150 to get a MD state inspection.
And now I’m probably going to sell the car. Thanks, Maryland.
You’d have to pay that tax almost anywhere in the country. If you’d registered the car in, say, Maryland, you’d pay them the excise tax. It’s definitely a kick in the dick, especially when you think all the hassle of buying a car is finally through, but at least this time it’s not unique to DC.
Yeah I got ROGERED on this too. Walked in, ready to drop $144 for two years of registration. Came out $550 poorer, and my car is 9 years old. Additional lesson: wait as long as you can; excise tax is based on estimated value — older car, lower value, (slightly) lower tax. Hey your “how to avoid it” link doesn’t work btw. Welcome to DC!
How is this different from buying a car and registering it in Maryland? I’ve done that, it’s no different. How is this different than buying a car and registering it in Virginia? In VA you also have car tax. This commentary is silly. Every state wants taxes in a car purchase, duh! I bought my car in MD, but had them deliver it to me in DC so I didn’t pay MD taxes and only paid DC taxes. Sorry you didn’t think or plan.
Please. Lots of states (including Maryland) have excise taxes that they impose on owners when they register vehicles purchased in other states. In Maryland, it’s up to 5% of the purchase price of the vehicle; in Mass., it’s up to 10%. Maybe the D.C. tax is high (although without knowing what your vehicle’s worth, there’s no way to tell), but the District isn’t out of line with this.
At least D.C. doesn’t make you pay a personal property tax on your car every year.
Ack!
The link for ‘clever ways around the DC excise tax’ gives me a big fat ole 404 error. It appears that it throws “http://driftreality.com/” in front of the link when it shouldn’t. (being that I took that off and the link worked)
marc
Wait until you see your car insurance premiums. Move into DC - pay 1k more a year than you’d paid in MD or VA. Awesome.
This is nothing new.
Wow - I’m surprised at the response I got here. I guess a lot of people have opinions on the tax. Thanks to El Chapitan for the note about the link. I’m going to fix it right away.
Look - about the tax, I just think it is too high and I think I was just upset because of the fact that I feel like the DC government is constantly finding ways to take money out of my pocket and their city services leave something to be desired - most of the cops I’ve encountered have somehow been extremely rude, and the workers in the DMV are terrible.
At least if they are going to levy these ridiculously high taxes on me, the least they can do is provide me with adequate services and employees who aren’t rude.
i pay about $300 a year for my car which isn’t too bad until you realize that you are being taxed on EVERYTHING here.
gas tax.
food tax.
housing tax.
income tax.
doo doo tax.
water tax.
recycling tax.
they don’t call it a sales tax. it’s a GENERAL excise tax.
hell, we get taxed on our taxes.
and since everything is shipped here, there’s also that cost figured into everything.
“most of the cops I’ve encountered have somehow been extremely rude, and the workers in the DMV are terrible.”
My DC DMV experience is far better than almost any other state I’ve live in. Getting my initial license when I moved to DC took me 30 minutes, and an in-person renewal took 45. When I lived in Texas and NY and had to go to their DMV, I spent at least an hour, and I spent the better part of 3 hours at the NJ DMV when I moved there. (And all for a license, since I didn’t own a car). The only place I’ve lived that’s done a better job than DC is Rhode Island.
That’s not to say they’re not terrible in some other way, but I’ve found the DC DMV workers to be pretty efficient.
And the level of the tax in DC is based on the weight of your car. Because you choose to drive a huge vehicle, you pay 7%. A lighter vehicle would have cost you 6%, while a real monster truck would jack it up to 8%. (If you wanted to avoid the tax, you could drive a hybrid — DC exempts them from excise tax). That 7% is only a bit higher than Maryland’s 5% and on par with a number of other states (7% in RI, 10% in MA). And again, DC doesn’t make you pay a personal property tax on your car each and every year.
Drift - I understand your pain but taxes are definitely a fact of life. I also think you should check your facts about ticketing etc. DC has parking enforcement crews who I believe are actually DMV employees. For the most part, cops don’t give out parking tickets (unless probably emergency situations like blocking rush hour, hydrants, etc). The point of this is so that cops can be free to attend to real problems. And hey, if the law is have a license plate on in the front - why didn’t you? It’s kind of hard to take your rant when it sounds like you were probably in the wrong. Suck it up, ya know?
That being said, everyone feels ganged up on, esp. by the gov’t (esp. in DC!) from time to time. This IS your website, so it’s your place to rant.
Tell you what: Promise that you’ll lobby the congresspeople and senators in whatever state you came from to let us charge a commuter tax (or toll or whatever you want to call it) like every other major city on the East coast does, and I promise you the roads will get better, ticketing will go down, and this excise tax will probably be excised. We have more than half a million people traversing our roads every day and all we get out of them is the taxes they pay on their lunch…if they buy it in town, of course, rather than just bringing it with them…and maybe a bit of the taxes from dinner. They go home to get gas, buy clothes, and (most importantly) pay their taxes. It’s ridiculous that we don’t have a way to tax out-of-state commuters even though they use our roads and our resources.
Well California had such a law years ago. they got sued because the law violated interstate commerce. So then those who were ass fucked got a nice fat $300 check from the state as compensation. Of course DC isn’t a state so can they violate interstate commerce? Honey, DC violates so many things including our asses. Sorry sweets. But living in DC beats Fairfax, right?
Wow - I continue to be amazed that people are so responsive to this topic.
I was really in a bad mood when I wrote this and now I’ve had a few days to cool off I still feel the same way. I still think the title excise tax is BS and I also think that the DMV workers are just so rude (although there are certainly exceptions).
I also know that it was a cop who ticketed me because he yelled at me at a nearby intersection only a block down from where I received the ticket, and was ticketed two other people simultaneously as I drove by.
[...] Drift Reality » Blog Archive » DC Excise Tax (aka getting kicked in the testicles once again by DC… Basically, if you buy your car out of state and then register your car in DC, there is something they call ‘Title Excise Tax.’ I call this ’sodomy with a nine-iron.’ [...]
You’re obviously a communist. Living in the nations capital is a privileged and you should be honored to pay for it. Dirty hippy.
Man, come here and live for a month or so. When you are in jail because of unpaid parking tickets then you can call me a commie.
DC DMV is a dream by comparison to the Gaithersburg MVA office in Maryland - that place is the closest I’ve come to having to choke a bitch over basic paperwork issues. The Georgetown annex in DC is the easier location to use though.
Also, re: parking meters. The DC parking meters are operated by Lockheed Martin - and I think that they do the ticketing as well as the funds collection. So that’s actually a contractor being rude to you about parking tickets in metered spots. Outside of metered areas, I don’t know.
If you had to choose - which state would you rather register your car in - Maryland or Virginia? I hear Virginia is high due to the personal property tax (twice a year?) - but the registration fees are only like $45 or so. In Maryland, they are asking for 5% of the value of the vehicle, which also seems high. I am thinking of movign up from Georgia, where I am only paying 2% currently.
Thanks in advance for the advice!
See below for possible tax break re:registration cost
The scoop is that the IRS counts a vehicle registration fee that’s based on your vehicle’s value as a personal property tax, which is deductible. This is true even if your state calls the fee a “registration fee” or a “vehicle use fee.” Check out page 146 of the IRS’s Publication 17 for more details.
But before you start entering your registration fees on line 7 of the 1040A form, double check to make sure your state calculates the car registration fee based on the car’s value. For example, if your state charges you 1% of the car’s value each year as a vehicle fee, and you pay $100 based on your car’s value ($10,000), then you can deduct $100. If your state charges you for 1% of the car’s value, plus a bunch of other miscellaneous fees, then you can still only deduct the $100. The fees might be itemized on your vehicle registration card or registration renewal form.
Other states ignore the car’s value and charge only based on the vehicle weight; in those cases, you can’t take the deduction.
If you aren’t sure about whether the state charges this fee or you can’t find the fee, contact your local motor-vehicle office. If you have questions about taking the deduction, call a tax professional or the IRS.
http://www.dmv.org/washington-dc/registration-faqs.php
I want to ask a question that I’m sure no one has even thought of.
Why do I need to register a car that I own, every single year. I own it, it’s mine, I have the title what gives. Who made that stupid law and when are we going to fix it.
Or even better lets make a law that says anyone can tax anyone any time they like. Free my ass…free to be taxed out of existence…your all a bunch of pussies!
So I just registerd my car in DC. I have registered it in 3 places now CO, MA, and now DC. In Colorado when you register you pay excise tax at the same time, no bill later in the mail. (3hrs at the DMV) Mass you walk out going wow this is cheap. (1.5hrs @ DMV) Then 2 weeks later the excise tax bill comes….BAM! I looked at my list of payments I made to DC and can’t figure out if excise was paid….used car? (30 mins @ DMV, 7 mins @ inspections!!!!!) My wife doesn’t ask questions…. Anyone?