WV taxes?

[jonb45]

What is the vehicle privilege tax? What is this 5% based on? Do I have to pay it being a new resident? I have two vehicles and the motorcycle. How in the world do they expect you to pay that? I wonder if I could just keep my IL plates for a while.

[Cain929]

Q What is the vehicle privilege tax?
A It's a property tax.
Q What is this 5% based on?
A The original vehicle cost.
Q Do I have to pay it being a new resident?
A Not for a year, I think.
Q I have two vehicles and the motorcycle.
A Not a question, but I will tell you that you have to pay it on all three.
Q How in the world do they expect you to pay that?
A Same way the rest of us do, suck it up and pay it... Sorry.
Q I wonder if I could just keep my IL plates for a while.
A Up to you... but you will pay sooner or later.

The WV property tax really burns my a$$. I have never thought it was fair to pay tax on something every year that a paid tax on when I purchased.

[BDKesling]

The privilege tax isn't the same as the property tax. WV doesn't have a sales tax, because if they did, you could go to PA and buy a car with a lower sales tax and save money. WV can't charge you a sales tax on a car bought out and registered out of state, so there is no sales tax on cars. Instead, there's a road privilege tax.

If you buy a car in WV, the tax is in lieu of a sales tax. If you live in WV and buy the car out of state, the dealer incorporates the road tax into the price just as they would a sales tax. Here's the kicker, if you move to WV, you'll have to pay the road privilege tax to register your vehicles in the state.

The road tax is not the same as the property tax. You'll have to pay property tax as well, but you should be able to get out of it for a year.

When we moved here (NC) from WV last year, my 2001 Ford Ranger, my wife's 2000 Maxima, and my two bikes cost us $780 in the NC version of the tax.

Good luck,
Brian

[Cain929]

I only pay one tax per year... and it states on my receipt Property tax. If it is split out to the road and privilege tax then it's done at the court house.

[BDKesling]

I only pay one tax per year... and it states on my receipt Property tax. If it is split out to the road and privilege tax then it's done at the court house.

The road privilege tax is a one time thing, property tax is every year. The road privilege tax is what most other states refer to as the sales tax. You would have paid it when you bought the car. After you own the car for a year you begin paying the property tax annually.

At one point in graduate school, my advisor took a job in Mississippi. It lasted 10 months before he'd had enough and we all moved back. The great (ha) state of MS had never managed to process my new licensing and registration info, and I paid no road privilege tax when we moved back.

One of the members of my research group had bought her car in WV and paid the tax when she bought it. We moved to MS and she paid to get it registered there, and when we moved back they hit her with the tax again, as a new resident bringing the car into the state. She was madder than a hornet when she found out that I got out of paying the tax twice.

Brian

[Cain929]

Gotcha... I never have purchased a car out of state so I just always took it as sales tax and went on.