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Comment by mannanj | Hacker News Reader

Here's a reminder that a Montana-LLC registered car is a legitimate privacy-preserving use case and not the tax-evasion that Straw Manners and Ad Hominem attackers make appear to be.

You can still pay your use tax and be a good citizen, and in fact, its probably a better demonstration of your duties as a citizen to protect the right to privacy and say to your local governments that have a history of abusing and selling vehicle registration data to 3rd parties that you do not tolerate that.

Happy to share more, the sites for Montana registration can be shady but the dirt legal one is great.

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In California, at least, if you are a resident of the state, you are legally required to register cars garaged in California with the California DMV. (It's actually a little ambiguous in an annoying way; even if you have a car that's garaged out of state, simply bringing it to CA for a weekend and driving it around can potentially trigger the CA registration requirement, again, assuming you are a CA resident.)

I'd be surprised if most other states don't have similar vehicle laws.

And the CHP has a website where you can report violations.

I address this below. Adding my personal interpretation onto it, I think it's fear-mongering and the only enforcement and successful litigation I've seen on it is when tax is actually not paid.

If you're worried, seek legal council and pay your use tax.

Consider also this Montana-route may require being brave because when you make a stand for something like privacy, which is under attack, you too may be attacked even if you are in the right legally.

I hear you bringing up 2 separate actions that can trigger a registration requirement.

1) Garaging a vehicle, for x days or more.

2) Driving a vehicle, for x days or more.

Have you looked into what the specifics are, and how they are triggered?

Poking some holes at this:

- Are you on the hook to register vehicles you don't own for actions (1) or (2)?

Consider two examples:

(a) you rent a vehicle,

(b) you drive or choose to house a friends' vehicle.

From what you've stated, logically, anytime you rent a vehicle or operate or house a friends', you now are asked to register it.

Do you think this is accurate? And if so, do you think it would hold in court of law?

>Consider two examples:
(a) you rent a vehicle,

(b) you drive or choose to house a friends' vehicle.

in both cases, the vehicle would already be registered in the state (by the rental company or by the friend).

it is not clear to me why you think the vehicles would need to be re-registered.

I haven't spent much time personally in Cali, but the places I have had to rent a car from I've never had a rental car plated in the same state I'm driving/renting it from

the rental car is obviously already going to be legal in the state (if not cali plated, then registration is probably via fleet registration or international registration plan (IRP), etc).

under no circumstance are you (the customer) going to be required to (or even able to) register the car you are renting.

i would not take car registration advice from a person asking about registering someone else's car at the dmv.

it is not me who thinks the vehicles need to be re-registered, but those who are making the argument that you need to register a vehicle you dont own simply because you drove it in a state or garaged it there.

>not the tax-evasion that Straw Manners and Ad Hominem attackers make appear to be.

Depends on the state, in my former state, Virginia, it is tax evasion. This is not unique to Virginia BTW, Georgia has similar laws. By law in VA, all cars that are garaged in state for longer than 90 days must pay the car tax. Only reason Montana LLC registered cars get away from it is most counties find out who must pay the tax from Virginia DMV so these cars are missed.

> By law in VA, all cars that are garaged in state for longer than 90 days must pay the car tax.

This is a lie. The law is that someone must register and through that process pay the registration tax. However you can't register a vehicle you don't own.

So you are left with one thing: use tax. Is use tax applicable to you?

>in my former state, Virginia, it is tax evasion

I think this is untrue as well. I'm very familiar with Virginia and spent a lot of my life living there. What makes it tax evasion?

> Here's a reminder that a Montana-LLC registered car is a legitimate privacy-preserving use case and not the tax-evasion that Straw Manners and Ad Hominem attackers make appear to be.

I mean, it’s both, right? You’re definitely getting a tax advantage compared to a lot of areas of the country. And how is insurance going to work?

Tax advantages are not tax evasion. Otherwise, why bother with doing anything that is tax advantaged if when anyone calls it tax evasion or accuses someone of a crime the accused just give up and takes guilt (assumption of guilt over innocence) paying whatever is asked?

Insurance is a bit tricky though I've heard it's simple. Most companies don't ask or inquire about where the cars registered, and neither do repair shops or parts of the claim process inquire into this. If you're uncomfortable with this, you can DYOR and check what happened for claims if a driver who's personally insured is driving a vehicle registered under an LLC/company. I think it isn't true that just because a vehicle is registered by a company, it cannot be used for personal purposes or that insurance companies would make claims more difficult (though check yourself and I'm happy to know what you find)

At least in my state, as a former emergency services worker, our EVIP (emergency vehicle incident prevention) course (which serves as a "substitute" for requiring a CDL to drive an emergency vehicle) absolutely tells you that driver liability can and will flow through to your personally, even when driving a work vehicle for work purposes. (Because that also comes with a presumption of liability for any incident that happens in "emergency mode" departments, agencies will generally also hold insurance specifically for that flow through that says "while the law says you can do anything, with due regard, in emergency mode, as long as you stay in our more restrictive SOPs, our insurer will also cover your personal liability".)

Those charged by the AG in CA were charged with tax fraud. It was apparent that they were actively avoiding taxes based on recorded messages and fraudulent documents.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/california-is-done-with-rich-g...

> One defendant texted that another conspirator “made me provide a fake bill of lading which cost $200 but did allow me to pickup the Urus.”

Many states have laws that require a vehicle to be registered in-state if they have established residence, or similar.

Even if you are able to register a vehicle legally in another state, that does not necessarily exempt you from obligations in your own state... even if it would for non-residents passing through.

Whose vehicle though? I think you should look legally at the distinction between ownership and use. Do you need to register your friends vehicles if you drive them for a weekend and trigger an in-state registration requirement (i.e. California as one of the comments mentioned)

Can't logically be true right?

When it comes to paying tax, ownership/use/residency is up for examination by tax authorities. They will make a determination based on their evidence and if you don't like it you can take it to tax court and you all can show a judge your evidence.

Hi the ownership/use/residency is not something that can be interpreted subjectively in cases where they like, to prejudiciously or personally target select individuals they don't like. I'm simply stating that when it comes to paying tax, it's up to wherever you live to articulate clearly when and how you pay tax when it's applicable to you.

When you don't owe tax, you don't pay it. When you owe it, you pay it. However don't cloud up the space and confuse people by saying you owe tax for property you don't own because someone feels that you are evading tax. That's not actually lawful or law based justice, that's hate/fear and prejudice based simply to prove a point. For example here, that privacy is not allowed and that you should be afraid for not taking ownership of things you use such as vehicles.

In cases where you use things you don't own, the law is usually pretty clearly articulated: pay use tax for what you use, pay registration and sales/registration taxes for things you own. Tax authorities know this and will articulate it clearly usually, except I suppose in certain prejudiced and discriminatory cases like when privacy is concerned like vehicle registration by LLCs. Now do you need to take ownership of things you use in a state just so you can hypothetically pay a tax for an evasion accusation that you don't apply to, I would be incredibly surprised to see if any state actually is saying this - I don't think its constitutionally or legally sound in any way. Instead, what I see, is fear mongering, authoritarian language and discourse and simply as I originally stated in my post Ad Hominem and logically fallacy based communication.

> However don't cloud up the space and confuse people by saying you owe tax for property you don't own because someone feels that you are evading tax.

Legally, single member LLCs often simply pass-through tax obligations. In this situation, the law literally disregards their existence for tax purposes.

> Now do you need to take ownership of things you use in a state just so you can hypothetically pay a tax for an evasion accusation that you don't apply to, I would be incredibly surprised to see if any state actually is saying this - I don't think its constitutionally or legally sound in any way.

No nobody is arbitrarily forcing anyone to trade ownership of anything -- a Montana LLC could register their car locally in CA. But that defeats the point of the "Montana car registration scheme" -- which is tax evasion.

If there is an actual real company in Montana that is giving their employees a car to drive around in California, they need to register it in California and pay tax there.

I live in North Dakota and the cost of maintaining a Montana LLC would be more than my yearly registration fee. Something I started doing is getting new plates every year so historical data of my movement based on plate number only goes back a year.

Now all you have to do is ensure your state's DOL doesn't enter into a data sharing agreement with Flock for historical license plate correlation...

Yeah. I'll have to look into that

Nice. I know of a Montana llc that got permanent plates so registration is now not required and only yearly LLC paperwork is required. The privacy is of course able to be compromised since data goes over a year. Though for the sake of protection against malicious actors and hostile groups, it is still better than a citizen-based ownership & registration.

There's a reason the ultra wealthy and rich have so many umbrella organizations and don't really "own" anything.

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