Rep Power: 0

I'm thinking of buying an used car from a private seller.

I live in California, do I get charged tax? I heard from a friend that the seller can say they sold it to me for $1, and I would only need to pay tax for $1.

Thanks for any tips.

 
Rep Power: 0

Yes there is sales tax on vehicles in california.

And yes if you have the ***** to lie about the sales price of the car you can get around it, but they have cracked down on that stuff from what I've heard...

minimize the amount you say you paid and you will be ok, but 1 dollar is too little to pay for a vehicle.

 
Rep Power: 0

usually I put about 30% of the real price, as long as the price of the seller and buyer match, u won't have to worry about DMV.
$1 is asking for trouble!

 
Rep Power: 583

yes, there is tax on the car wherever you register it. if youre getting everything in CA and you live in CA, then you can pay the tax to the dealer or to the DMV.

i wouldn't mess w/ the $1 tax and stuff, tax fraud is a serious offense. besides, even if you dont get caught, which you will, saying you bought the car for $1 is going to hurt you if you decide to sell the car later. the price will go on the record somewhere and will seriously devalue the car.

 
Rep Power: 303

yes you must pay tax. If you put the 1.00 amt DMV will goto the kelly blue book and charge you tax on that price. They will always goto the highets possible price. I'd suggets putting a reasonable price.

 
Rep Power: 0

yeah there is tax unless it is a family member

 
Rep Power: 360

My parents sold their one car to my sister on paper for $1. Nothing bad will happen. If you are actually giving the car away for free then say you sold it for $1 and no one will get into trouble. If you sell the car for some X amount of dollars then you better put down that much or you will get in trouble. Don't lie.

They will tax your family members too unless PA is different from CA. Uncle Sam is gunna get you one way or another, family or not.

 
Rep Power: 0

they always find a way to shaft you, especially in cali

 
Rep Power: 0

i live in tennessee and i they did not tax a family member

 
Rep Power: 303

yea DO NOT put it down for 1$. they will get you.

if ur buying a car for 5k. then put down around 2k, then they wont get suspisous


unless u guys are family, then there will be no tax....only change of ownership

 
Rep Power: 360

oh i thought they taxed your family members too but i might have gotten all of the billion different charges they have mixed up. sorry.

 
Rep Power: 0

Yes it is serious offense, My father is a CPA (certified public accountant), and he just got done paying over 1.5Million in lawyers fees, plus the fines he had to pay, probably about 4 or 5 million gone. It was all bulls*** that they said they had. People he did business with (which he knew he shouldnt have done business with) lied about having companies, and my dad filed their tax returns. He also did a lot of other BS work for them. But it was all tax fraud and defrauding the gov't. So be careful, be sure you both do it right if you put a lower price $1.00 is way to little, the gov't will go after you, they hate tax fraud.

 
Rep Power: 288

^^^^^ agreeeed

 
Rep Power: 276

make sure you have the sellers permission or even come out with a contract for personal reasons if you have to (assuming if your buying from unknown person). i would ask the seller to write down about 50% of the actual selling price to make it safe and not so suspicous.

 
Rep Power: 306

Plus if they ask why it is so low, you can start listing lots of problems the car has, bad compression, electrical shorts, non working ac, theft job. That would be a logical explanation of why the amount is low.

 
Rep Power: 311

LOL my parents sold my sisters husband our "family work truck" (2001 ranger 4x4) for a $1.00 I was pissed i was like i would have bought it for 100.00 lol and i think the only time there isnt a tax is when you do a trade in

 
Rep Power: 360