I recently completed the purchase of my GX, paying my home state tax rate; paying nearly $1100 more than the state rate I purchased from. What I learned is...
- Ask about process up front. Most dealers know that they need to collect the taxes for your state. I went to DMV and got a number for them to call if they couldn't figure out the rate.
- If you don't get the taxes right or sent to your home state Dept of Revenue, you may(will) have to pay taxes twice when you register the vehicle.
- Even though I am registering it out of state of purchase, I still have to get a 60-day tag and register vehicle to state of purchase. That cost me about $160.
Now to be transparent, I have not seen my process fully play out. I checked last week to see if collected taxes had been sent with no success.
Well at least you didn't get turned away like me because I wasn't a previous Lexus owner.
Lastly, I have not seen a military member avoid taxes on a vehicle purchase. You pay home state or temp state, but you pay. Looking at the Utah DMV site has vehicle sales tax 7.25% on the low end, and 7.55% on the high end for a vehicle purchased in Salt Lake City. The vehicle not readily available gives you a little more time to get good. Unless you are going back to UT soon, I would purchase locally with your orders. Otherwise, you are looking at $4,900 to $6,100 not including other fees. Doing the math for Co Spr is about the same.