Does anyone know some ins and outs of trading cars in this fine evergreen state? Got the potential of trading my fathers car for another. I have never traded a car before. How does the taxing work? At this point I assume it is like I am buying his,and he is buying mine? Any help will be much appreciated!!!!
That would seem to be the easiest route, you each sell your car to the other for ($1,000) or whatever, transfer titles...
You can swap titles, but you'll end up paying taxes on whatever the state decides is appropriate value. "That guy with the coupe's" idea is the best, that way you only pay 8% on the established "sale" amount on the title... and yes, I speak from experience.
Washington state allows a vehicle to be gifted once. Maybe they could be presents to eachother. I'm not up on all of the details, but its another avenue that you could look into.
My understanding was that you could only gift a car one time, meaning you could only gift ONE car, not each car being gifted once. The easiest thing would be to say you purchased the vehicle for $1000, pay the $80 sales tax, and be done with it. Anything else will just subject you to extra scrutiny, and you aren't guaranteed that you will save any money, more than likely it will cost you more! From this webpage: http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/usetax.html What if I receive a vehicle or vessel as a gift? If you can provide proof that the person who gave you the vehicle or vessel paid sales or use tax on the vehicle or vessel, no use tax is due. If the person who gave you the gift owned the vehicle for 7 years or more and is from a state or province with sales tax, it will be assumed that tax was paid and no proof is needed. If the vehicle or vessel is coming from a state or province without sales or use tax, use tax is due.
I believe that there is a provision for barter trade but now I imagine that you will still have to pay a use tax. If you were on this side of the Cascades in the Yakima Valley there are two license offices with people who are very savy. Straight arrow but the owners of each office really knows their stuff. Cascade licensing Agency in Union Gap and or Ryders' True Value licensing agency in Grandview. Both are quite helpful if you have your ducks in a straight row. Suggestion, If you do do the trade, have both of you go to the license office at the same time and do the paperwork for the trade then and there with the same agent. Tell them that you are trading straight across (if that is the case) and ask what you need to do. That should be the best way to get things done right and actually save you some tax money in the process. And when you walk out it's a done deal.
Ive traded cars a couple times. If I remeber right we just wrote the tittles up as bought for $100 with a bill of sale saying it was in-op.
Whatever you decide to do, be careful which licensing agency you go to. Call ahead and ask questions. My experience has been that some agencies won't accept a bill-of-sale if THEY think that the value is too low. They will tell you you'll have to have the car appraised or go out of their book for value. Just do your homework before going in. Several years ago, I bought a Model A in California. Took the title and bill-of-sale to a local licensing agency and was told that the $2000 that I paid for it was too low (they hadn't seen the car), so they would need an appraisal and btw it would have to be weighed, and bring in the weight certificate before they could do the transfer. So talking to one of my friends, he told me to bring my stuff down to an agency by his place. I did and while she was doing the transfer asked my what it weighed, I just told her 2215 lbs and she was happy. That was about five years ago.
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