Autos are finally appreciating in value!

Maybe this was advertised but it came as a surprise to me. According to Loudoun County, our two vehicles have appreciated 17% and 12% somehow between Jan 1, 2009 and Jan 1, 2010. Additionally it appears the car tax relief has dropped from 66% to 58%. Overall our first half personal property tax is an increase of over 46% which will equate to about $300 more this year compared to last year.

 

Ok, I'm so glad you posted because we got out bills and my jaw dropped when I tabulated I saw an increase of 63% with one of our cars, which I thought was INSANE considering automobiles are a depreciating asset.

 

Doesn't surprise me since Loudoun is one of the MOST expensive county now with all the taxes rising --real estate and personal property. Looks like the County needs $$$ badly so they decided to hit us with more taxes.

Has anyone called the county to ask them WHY these "depreciating assets" are suddenly being appreciated for some unknown reason??

Don't take these increased taxes sitting down!!!

 

Well I guess it's time for the wife to let me buy one of these then.

 

Don't forget that personal property tax on cars is tax deductible if you itemize on your federal taxes.

 

I think you are missing the point here...Irrelevant of tax deductions, etc., you STILL have to PAY for it and it STILL will go up. You have to cut them a check to pay for it...this is money out of your pocket and cannot go towards food, mortgage, rent, or whatever. It is being hijacked by our own elected officials bent on trying to get more revenues from us.

Sure, this means that less of our income will be taxed by the feds but $300 more isn't going to really mean much taxes on the Fed side but it will HURT us more in the pocket when we have to shell it out to the Loudoun folks...

Hope my point comes across better this time around...

 

Capricorn, you bring up a good point and I never really understood why some think just because you can deduct something from your taxes that it's a good thing.

For example, let's say I pay $10000 a year for interest on my mortgage. If I ask 10 people, 9 of them are convinced that this is a good thing for tax purposes as that's $10000 that's deductible from my income come tax-time. This doesn't make any sense to me. Even if I get to deduct it, the math works out that I'm still paying a buttload of money to interest. It's not good. Isn't it better to just pay no interest at all?

A similar principle applies here. So I pay $700 this year in property tax on one of my cars. Even though it's deductible, I'm still paying a buttload of money on my property tax. Wouldn't it just be better to pay less in taxes?

This wasn't meant to be a dig at you gunzour, I just don't understand this way of thinking.

 

I wasn't trying to defend the tax increase.. just pointing out that it is deductible on an itemized return. It's an easy deduction to forget since it's not specifically mentioned on the tax forms, but you might as well take if you have to pay it and you are itemizing. Just trying to make some lemonade out of a lemon.

I moved here from Maryland a few years ago, and although Virginia taxes are generally lower, I was really pretty ticked off to find out I had to pay tax on my car repeatedly every year. They don't have anything like that in MD.

 

Paying no interest is definitely an option... you can pay off the loan and being done with it. Some will keep a mortgage *just* to deduct the interest from their income tax.

 

What pisses me off even MORE is how many people live in Loudoun and Fairfax Counties and NEVER bother to register their cars in those counties once they have moved there from Ohio, Florida, Texas, Maryland, etc...they are PLAINLY in broad daylight avoiding paying personal property taxes. I have a friend that works for Fairfax County Government tax department who tells me that (1) they don't have enough people to check to see who needs to register their cars in VA; and (2) they don't want to get off their asses and go out and get them...because they would rather rely on us to report people to them. So this is why we are paying more each year...to cover those who don't pay up/register their cars in Virginia....

So that's WHAT burns me up!!! :madcurse:

 

For those with hybrids, your tax bill may be going up even more. I heard that the hybrid exemption is no longer in effect this year.

 

So much for being encouraged to save the environment! Now, the cost of doing so has effectually gone up. Its not going to encourage people to help save the environment...what were the politicians thinking?!?

 

FYI People in the military are not required to change the state of registration on their cars and thus do not have to pay property tax. So I realize some folks cheat the system but not all are.

 

I never really liked the Loudoun tax exemption for hybrids and regardless I believe it had to be intended only for a short term anyway. This particular break removed 100% of the tax burden from the hybrid owner and as a result shifted that burden to the non-hybrid owners. This of course isn't a big deal when the number of hybrids is relatively small but certainly in time as the percentage of hybrids grows this isn't sustainable. In any case the timing of this tax incentive to be removed seems unfortunate for those who were receiving it.

 

You so right on this, in addition Loudoun County BoS increased the tax on hybrids is was $1 per $100 but in Jan 2010 they voted to increase the tax to $4.20 per $100 :scaredeyes: this was the main reason we did NOT buy a hybrid, because we knew about the HUGE tax increase.

IMHO - Loudoun Co is definitely not a county that promotes "going green" when choosing to purchase a new car.

 

You say some? I say A LOT are cheating the system. I often talk to people whose license plates are from out of state and most of the folks I talked to were NOT in the military. (Trust me, I know because I am a product of a military family as an Army Brat.) Many of them worked for private/public companies. Some have said that they aren't going to register their cars with Loudoun or Fairfax counties because they wanted to avoid paying taxes. I did some research and found that some have family back home that take their mail from their old homes and mail it to them. Additionally, many live in apartments/condos where many folks don't turn in their own neighbors. I had a neighbor who worked for SAIC who moved here from Pennsylvania and he refused to register his car with the county. He said that he wasn't going to be a sucker paying taxes like we do.

We do have a REAL problem in Loudoun and Fairfax counties where a lot of folks are just ignoring the law on registering their vehicles and paying their taxes like the rest of us do. In other words, they are thumbing their noses at the law...this is wrong. Both counties aren't doing MUCH at all to combat the problem and I don't think they ever will. They'll just keep increasing the tax rates.

 

Have you done anything about it? Have you made any calls to turn these people in?

 

Sure have and even took pictures....was blown off. Looks like they don't take it seriously anymore. I gave up last year and I've tried with Loudoun as well...Nothing comes of it.

Im not going to waste my time with government folks who can't even lift a damn finger to catch people as well.

 

Back in 1998 I was living in the Apts over by GW campus and my boyfriend (who lived in Ffx Cty at the time) came out one morning and found a notice on his windshield (looked like a ticket) that said he was required to register his car in Loudoun within 30 days. Ahh, the good old days.