Apparently we value our 996s more than the dealers do..

Never came across this before.. Recently got my personal property tax bill for the cars, and the 996 was valued at about $16k, and my '08 MCCS was valued at $13k. So I head over to KBB.com to check the values (PPT is always lower, thank goodness, but I was curious HOW much lower). I looked up the MINI first, and it showed Private Seller value of about $19k and Dealer Sale value of $22k, so about what I expected. Then I did the 996, and I had to laugh. The Private Seller value was $27.5k, and the Dealer Sale was LOWER at $26K!! So either we are all buying them cheap from dealers and then reselling them to unsuspecting neophytes for more, or we (as I would suspect) take better care of our cars, keep better records, so sell them for more to smarter buyers... In general, though, I was surprised that the values were as high as they were listed. Of course I realize KBB is only a guide, yada yada yada.

Wait a sec, you pay yearly property tax in Virginia for your personal possessions? WTF

Cap, I pay tax annually to the state of California for "personal" property I use for my business. Every year I have to complete a return showing how much stuff I own, and a couple of weeks later they send me a tax bill. "Personal" is in quotes because I didn't purchase it personally, the corporation bought it, but it's still "personal." I pay taxes annually on stuff I bought with taxed income, and on which I paid sales tax. It pisses me off every year. My CPA gets so angry about it every year that he can't really discuss it. He's Canadian, and he curses so much about it that every third word is "sorry." Don't mistake this for a use tax paid in lieu of sales tax - I _paid_ sales tax on these purchases. The state believes that I should pay a little bit more. Every year. Forever.

Yea, WTF is personal property tax? In Florida we don't pay tax on our own stuff :/

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Wow. Sorry. What kind of percentage are we talking about here?

MA taxes you on cars you own every year too... 2.5% of some value they pull out of thin air

There's a lot of states that do that, Missouri is another.

I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and I pay $400/yr in personal property tax and registration for my '04 AE 996. I go through a period of being really pissed off every year when writing that check. I moved up here from Florida where there was no such tax.

I pay a property tax on my car every year too. Which sucks because our gas taxes are the highest in the Southeast but still, gotta pay tax on the car annually.

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Yep. Dumbest f'in bs I've ever heard of. Paying a yearly tax on things I already paid sales tax on and own outright. Can one truly ever own anything? If I don't pay yearly taxes on my car, I can't drive it. If I don't pay yearly taxes for my land and the house on it, the gov takes it away, so I suppose that I don't really own anything.

We (CT) pay bi-annual personal property tax on each car and are in the top 5 states for highest gas prices. This is on top of the (6.35%) state sales tax, auto registration fees every two years and emission testing fees...and if your personal personal property tax is not current you cannot renew registration of the car. Of course this is all in addition state Income and high RE tax. And for this we get to drive on crappy, congested roads

Hidden fees and taxes or formal property bills, the state gets their money one way or another.

Seriously sucks to pay tax on personal property. Hope IL doesn't ever go down that route.

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Well, if it makes you feel better, the state tax in Washington is 6.5%, but it's 9.5% in the Seattle area.

I've seriously never heard of personal property tax. Bizarre. We don't have that here. No sales tax, either. Property taxes are low. (now state INCOME tax, that's a different story. They'll get you one way or another.)

To address your concern about the dealership vs. KBB prices, the Fair Market Value and KBB rarely ever align. In other words the Fair Market Value can be higher/lower depending on supply/demand, economy. KBB is really not used as a selling reference but rather for insurance. Insurance bases the value of your car based on KBB. For example, an E30 M3 fair market value is around 18 - 40K depending on condition. The KBB is around 12 - 15K. Insurance will only pay out what the KBB price is, not the fair market value.

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Incorrect, insurance will pay out based on available comps and the payout is completely negotiable, so you don't need to take their offer. I just had a Ducati motorcycle totaled and in the payoff paperwork they showed the ads that they found of identical motorcycles for sale in my vicinity and how those were the basis for their offer. I easily got 1.5k over KBB (and we're talking on a 5k motorcycle).

5CHN3LL I didn't buy my car under my corporation name and I don't pay any property tax on it. Only CA DMV fees. But I do pay property tax on my boat which is not much but it still sucks *** big time.

As I assume we all enjoy driving on paved roads, having functioning stop lights and street lights, knowing that someone will answer when we dial 911, and even discovering a nice boat ramp at the lake, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. I'd even agree to higher road use taxes if the money went to fixing and improving infrastructure. I hate waste, fraud, and abuse, but taxes are not actually a bad thing. Right? That said, I am a refugee from CA and would not want to pay those taxes.

Taxing personal property, never heard of it till now. WOW. I pay licence fees, gas taxes, property tax (for house) but not a variable tax based on the value of something like a car.

By discovering a nice boat ramp at a PUBLIC LAKE and paying an entrance fee for the maintenance that's already paid for by all the taxes we pay does not mean I still need to pay property tax on it.

Here in Norcal I rarely see any used 996s for sale at the dealers that aren't either C4S or turbos. $40K seems to be the starting point for them to get on the lot. I doubt you'd ever get a reasonable trade in around here for most 996 models. Probably just a lowball wholesale price they know that can pass it on to a small lot for. They don't want anyone to see how cheap they might get down the road!

I lived in NorCal, specifically Danville, California for eight years before moving to Austin, Texas. Between the cost of homes, high state sales tax, high state income tax, high gas prices, worst cops in history and being nickeled and dimed to death for everything I am very happy with my move to Texas.

Well, I've lived NY, CT, MA, CO, MI, WV, & VA, and worked in NV, CA, TX & FL as well. All have their pluses and minuses but to be honest, all I really care about is the overall cost of living and the quality of life I get for the cost. So far, Richmond is at the top of the places I've lived, for the overall cost, (though I do like Austin). A $240 tax bill on my Porsche is pretty minor in the overall scheme. However, it does mean that it will likely be a cold day in hell that I ever buy a brand new car while living in a property tax state because of said property tax adding too much to the already insane depreciation of any new car. A new 911 would cost you roughly an extra 5Gs the first year, then 4Gs the second, and so on. (In my best Thurston Howell III voice) " REALLY, if you can't afford to pay the tax then maybe you shouldn't be buying the car. I mean REALLY, we wouldn't just want anyone owning a new Porsche, now would we?"