What can convince an otherwise law-abiding citizen to get creative (and potentially bending the law) with the way that they handle auto registration? When considering the motive in a case like this, it can useful to get a sense of what auto insurance rates and taxes are like in a given state. In New York, for instance, there’s been plenty of talk of insurance reform, with the goal of lowering bills, on both the local and state level. Whether it will have the desired effect remains unclear.
On the other side of the country, California’s state government has recently embarked on a change in policy of its own: figuring out whether the Californian owners of luxury cars are registering their cars in states with lower taxes. In a recent article for the Los Angeles Times, Suhauna Hussain explored the amount of money that the state says that it is losing to ethically dubious registration practices.
You may note that I used “ethically dubious” above and not “illegal.” That’s something that California lawmakers are looking to change; a bill currently being considered by the state Senate would regulate Californians registering luxury vehicles in other states to avoid paying California state taxes on them…