California Vehicle Registration and gas taxes. State makes more than dealers!

So the other day I had to pay my truck registration, not a happy day. My work truck is a 2003 Dodge Ram 2500 4x4. It is a necessity in my business, not a luxury. Due to a lift gate on the rear and taller off-road tires I get a little less than 10mpg. In the eight years I have had it I have put about 100,000 on the truck. The original owner only 20,000 miles before he sold it to me. On to the point.

Truck cost the original owner $54,000: Sales tax paid $5,000
I bought the truck for $20,000: Sales tax paid: $1,900
110,000 miles driven, Gasoline tax paid to the State: 4,000
Registration has averaged 400.00 a year x ten years: 4,000
To date the State has made on my Truck: 14,900
Over the next ten years add another $7,000

Total made by the State in taxes over the 20 year lifespan of my truck and you end up with nearly $22,000
Toss in another $8,000 in gas taxes to the Feds over it's lifespan and you have a grand total of $30,000

Not bad for a product they did not build, did not inventory and did not sell.

Must not be a lucrative business if you're hurting because of taxes and your accountant can't figure out how to write that off as a business expense.

Originally posted by DaTroof
Must not be a lucrative business if you're hurting because of taxes and your accountant can't figure out how to write that off as a business expense.

Write off as a business expense??? You realize that doesn't give you a dime of that money BACK, right? Refundable tax credits are for the non-paying classes by very low to no income. Working folk don't generally get much if any of that.

I feel for the OP. Sales tax on a used vehicle? Oh..now THAT hurts. I'm glad not every state does that. Every state does rape us on gas taxes tho and they range fro around $0.30 a gallon to north of $0.70 PER gallon pumped. It's utterly absurd and California ranks among the highest in the nation on those fuel pump taxes while tanking hard on highway upkeep and maintenance by the reality of driving them if not the numbers to support that as well.

What a scam these "highway funding" things have become. The highway sees precious little but the fees for the drivers keep running up like we're all able to print money or something. They forget, we aren't Congress.

*Clarification for non-U.S. people.

Tax write offs simply reduce what you're paying out in addition to everything else that was paid across the course of the year in all levels of taxation already levied. I started getting refunds again when I became a wee company driver and taking a paycheck like everyone else because they took TOO much...but I never saw or even dreamed of a return when I owned a truck and ran a business...despite making quarterly estimates as required. it's quite a system ...and 10's of thousands of pages of tax code to define it with.

reply to post by DaTroof

WTF does that have to do with my post? Nowhere did I say that I could not afford it. And yes I have a fantastic accountant and mange to write off more expenses in a year than some people make in ten. I am doing so well working half the year I feel a bit guilty at times.

However, all that aside I ask again WTF does what I make have to do with my post? did you see me say I could not afford it?

You sir, are a logic beast!

perhaps you need a straw company to lease your truck from...
or open up a church of you
and have church of you lease from a straw leasing company the church of you owns...

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

Wrabbit, here is another fun statistic. Californians spend 25% more than the National average on, wait for it........

Undercarriage Repairs!

reply to post by Mamatus

You know how utterly sad and pathetic a statistic that really is? I'd never heard it before but I have no doubt you're right by knowing California's roads myself.

It's pathetic and sad because California has precious little for highway miles covered in corrosive chemicals in de-icing like the Midwest and Northeast do across a vehicles lifetime. That stuff is brutal if not washed off regularly....and yet, sunny California takes a high position for damage to an area of the vehicle you'd think places like Michigan or Ohio or New York would pretty well own the field on. What a state that has become over the years.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


A few years ago I came around a turn at about 70mph on my sport bike. There is a bridge on the turn that had such a nasty gap in the asphalt that it immediately flattened my front tire followed by popping the bead on my rear tire. Pretty scary but did not crash (heck of a story). It did over $1,400 in damages to my bike. In California you can file a claim for pothole related undercarriage repairs. With one Caveat, it has to be a previously reported pothole. Well this was apparently "not previously" reported. When I was telling this to my relatively new riding buddy (CHP officer, more great stories), his jaw dropped. It seems he reported this very same spot when it flattened both the tires on his sport bike the previous year...........

Yup it's ugly.