Missourians would be barred from registering their cars and trucks in other states under legislation moving through the Missouri House of Representatives.
The sponsor, State Rep. Ed Lewis, R-Moberly, told Missourinet that there’s a large number of Missouri residents choosing other states to register their vehicles — in particular, Montana.
“There’s a whole business that’s sprung up in Montana where they will create an LLC, putting in the name of this Montana LLC, where they don’t pay property tax and basically it’s tax evasion is what it is,” Lewis said.
He also told Missourinet that for only $49, someone can register an LLC in that state, in effect a shell company, and then get a Montana license plate.
“You might go down to the Lake of the Ozarks to a place where people park their RVs, and you might find 70% of the RVs with Montana license plates,” Lewis said. “You buy a $100,000 RV, so you’ve got a decent amount of sales tax depending on where you live. Say you live in Kansas City or St. Louis and you’ve got 11% total sales tax or whatever, and you’re like, ‘I don’t want to pay $10,000 in sales tax for this vehicle.'”
HB 2951 would make it a crime for Missourians to register vehicles in other states if their intent is to avoid paying registration fees in Missouri, punishable by a $500 fine, and could also result in their driver’s license being suspended. Also, anyone making a false statement about registering their vehicle out of state would be fined 75% of the registration fees they would have paid in Missouri.
“(If) you’re going to be paying state income tax in the state of Missouri, you have a driver’s license in the state of Missouri, you reside in the state of Missouri, and you’re, you know, especially if you were the initial purchaser of the motor vehicle in the state of Missouri, then you should be paying Missouri sales tax and Missouri property tax,” Lewis said.
The proposal would also create a four-month amnesty period for people with out-of-state registered vehicles to get them registered in Missouri.
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