[Dawn]

Bryon,

I know back in the late 90’s when I bought a Ford F150 from the local ford dealer, the DMV automatically put it through as a commerical vehicle. The only benefit I could find was that the annual reg fees where more expensive. There was no way for me to change the registration (or at least the friendly, helpful worked at the local DMV wanted to help me find a way to do it). A few years later, the Dodge 2500 diesel went through as a standard title, saving me a little money each year. It could have been the Ford was contractor white, while the dodge was silver 🙂

[Bob]

I am going to try to put the muscle on a couple of our lawyer members to help us with this topic. If in fact the MT LLC route is not tax evasion, is legal and would benefit our members we need ot know. If the reverse is true we also need to understand that. I just happen to be hanging around a couple this week and if the do pro bono work we may have the definitive answers. I find it interesting that one of them has registered his coach in the state where he resides, and maybe the second does as well.

[Davy]

Jon

Back in March 2009 we had an attorney look into our situation in Pa and given the laws in place at the time he recommended that we error on the side of caution and pay the tax.

We are conservative by nature and didn’t want to do something that could cause us grief and or penalties later so we paid the sales tax on the coach.

That’s just our experience things could have changed in 5 or 6 years.

It’ll be interesting to get some up to date legal information.

Thank you

Chris

[Rick & Denise]

Just to be clear, I am a lawyer, and I did not say nor imply that the Montana LLC concept is “legal.” I did not attempt to answer that question. All I said was that I think, at least in California, a business entity like an LLC can own a non-commercially registered vehicle. The question of whether the Montana LLC concept is “legal” or advisable is far more complex and nuanced than that. Not only is there much more to the question, but the answer likely varies by state, and it certainly depends on the particular circumstances of the applicant.

I do commercial litigation, not tax law, but I have corporate and tax lawyers working for my firm. I could very easily and cheaply form a Montana LLC to hold title to my bus. Still, I made the personal decision to register my bus in my own name in my own state. Others have undoubtedly gone the other way and perhaps saved many thousands of dollars in sales tax and registration fees. Still others have done so and ended up paying a steep price.

I’m not about to give general legal advice over the internet, but I will make the common sense recommendation that anyone considering the Montana LLC concept should consult their own personal attorney in their home state, not just the Montana attorney who would set up the deal. I don’t mean to question the integrity of the Montana lawyers who set up these LLCs and I was heartened to read in a post above that a Montana lawyer recommended against using this mechanism by residents of a particular state. I’m just concerned that the Montana lawyer may not be familar with the laws in all other states.

Here’s my disclaimer one more time: I don’t mind sharing the decision that I personally made, but no legal or tax advice is intended by this post.

[Archived]

My intent in pursuing this is to determine if this is legal as a means of avoiding tax or if it is evasion the word I have specifically chosen to use. I doubt if anyone can make a general statement as to how the states view this means of registering and owning a coach, but I think our members need to know up front if using a MT LLC for the sole purpose of saving sales taxes is legal.

Beyond that I think they have to determine if they have a risk or not in doing so.

[Tom]

After 114 posts I suggest we let this die. There are many on this site with Montana LLC’s and many without, so personal choice seems to be the rule of the day.