I'm trying to accomplish this as cheaply as possible.

My fiance's car is currently registered/titled in her dad's name - not that it matters in this situation for anything except the value of sales tax paid I think - it's an '04 mazda 3. Her dad is gong to either sell it to me or her for $1 - whichever way will end up being cheaper. I can't seem to find any information as to which will be cheaper online.

I have a GA license - she has a NC license for a few more weeks. If the car is sold to her while she has a NC license won't the car have to be registered/titled/inspected in NC - and I think in NC you only pay sales tax on the value that the car was sold for? If the car is sold to me - I think GA has a rule where we would have to pay sales tax on the value of the car (not the amount it was sold for) but we would avoid paying to have it registered/titled in NC

I'm sure I forgot something so let me know if you think I did - or if any information I posted is incorrect

5/29/2007 2:44:29 PM

nope, tax is based on the book value, just had to pay taxes on a $8200 bike i bought for $6200 evewn with a notarized bill of sale

5/29/2007 2:55:25 PM

oh okay - so we would have to pay sales tax on fair market value no matter if it was GA or NC?

5/29/2007 4:46:20 PM

i'm not sure about NC, but when I lived in Illinois they had a exemption for gifting from a parent to a child

5/29/2007 5:22:38 PM

right - the car would be given - i only said the car would be sold for $1 because i guess i assumed the car had to be sold and couldn't be given - i guess that doesn't make sense - so any exemptions like that would be great - does anyone know?

5/29/2007 5:25:58 PM

I am a bit confused on your question but just thinking here....

Why can't he just move the title to her name without a tax penalty?

5/29/2007 5:32:58 PM

because this is north carolina where they tax us no matter what we do

if you drive a car, they’ll tax the street
if you try to sit, they’ll tax your seat
if you get too cold, they’ll tax the heat
if you take a walk, they'll tax your feet

5/29/2007 5:59:19 PM

Quote :

"Why can't he just move the title to her name without a tax penalty?"

I'm hoping that's the case, but in some instances you have to pay a gift tax if you don't pay sales tax - the people on the phones at the DOT/DMV in GA and NC are almost useless

5/29/2007 6:24:25 PM

I have tried calling and have had similar issues before.

I ended up just going to the DMV off of Wake Forest and 440 and they were helpful. Just get there earlier.

5/30/2007 7:04:46 AM

Tell them it's a gift and she wont have to pay tax.

5/30/2007 7:16:40 AM

current gift tax limit is at $12,000......so if it's worth more than that you will have to pay gift tax

5/30/2007 10:09:54 AM

it's right on the limit of 12k depending on which book value you look at - you could probably argue it's worth less or more depending

5/30/2007 10:22:40 AM

Quote :

"i'm not sure about NC, but when I lived in Illinois they had a exemption for gifting from a parent to a child"

correct. my Xterra was in my mom's name, and when we transferred title and registration to me the DMV lady said "well good thing she's your mom and this was a gift b/c this just saved you a lot of money"

[Edited on May 30, 2007 at 10:28 AM. Reason : NC of course.]

5/30/2007 10:26:31 AM

My dad and I traded the titles to some cars and they did not charge any tax. I don't know if its because I was trading them with my dad or if they don't tax gifts. If it only supposed to apply to parent to child gifts then I got around it because the car I gave him was worth about 3k more than the one he was "giving" me.

6/2/2007 2:01:01 PM

When I moved to North Carolina from Texas, they charged me tax based on their (inflated) "fair market value" in order to register my car in NC. There was no change in ownership -- the TX title was in my name.

6/2/2007 2:43:08 PM

wow, i'm surprised a genius like OmarBadu couldn't figure this shit out for himself

and aren't there already 10 other threads about this?

6/2/2007 2:56:41 PM

lol

6/2/2007 3:32:03 PM

it's a parent to child gift. there is no tax, and no price limit (unless something has changed).

6/2/2007 5:36:53 PM