Registering a car with a private trust
 

Lots of knowledge on this board so posing some ideas and questions.

Friend of mine is a trustee on a trust that he has various items with. What they are I do not know, does not matter.

Unfortunately he lives in the socialist state of Kalifornia. If the trust is registered in a different state (say Montana for grins) is there a reason why he cannot put a car or truck into the trust and use Montana license plates on the vehicle?

Also what if he is driving a car with Montana plates, registered to a Montana trust but he has a Kalifornia drivers license?

He is concerned with the situation. My gut feeling is that he is fine as long as he is the trustee and part of his duties and privilidges in the trust allow him to operate vehicles owned by the trust.

Having a valid DL and insurance to cover the vehicle is all that it should take and he should be able to drive in any state without hassles. Also should he be stopped by any LE there should not be any hassle as the trust is based out of state and the vehicle legally licensed and registered in that state.

Comments?

hereabouts, the registration is supposed to be in the state where the vehicle has been housed for the last 30 days. they started enforcing this with out of state college students.

does the trust business include a commercial vehicle?

I'd get a MT drivers license if I were him.

The vehicle that we are talking about right now is a 911, not a commercial vehicle. Might also be a pickup truck involved but not sure.

Rick, agree and would rather have a MT drivers license any day but its not me.

These guys were recommended to me when I was looking at the cost of registering my Ferrari. Cops COULD be dix about it, making you prove you have some sort of business entity or reason for the car being titled/registered there.
Me...I just paid the 13k:mad::mad::rolleyes:


Montana LLC Vehicle Registration : Deer Creek Corporate Services

We established trusts in VA. We moved to DC, and registered the 911 and our DD in DC, with our trusts on the titles. I doubt seriously that we could have titled/registered our cars in VA, while living in DC. You need to have established residency, with proof, to title/register your cars...IMO, of course.

Jim in San Diego,

You can get a good trust done for around $1000. Spending too much more is a waste of money IMHO. BTW, I carry a folder in each car with the "public copy" of the trust and paperwork showing that I am authorized to operate vehicles as part of my duties. If LE asks, I have all the documentation needed.

Jim Richards,

I have a trust with several vehicles in the trust. I do have a local drivers license but they said that this is for ID purposes only. If you have a trust somewhere you have to have a mailing address for the trust, so that would be your local point of contact or residence. You can have more than one residence last time I looked.

The friend - and you - are asking for a big problem with the state.

Maybe you can get away with it, but if they catch you it won't be pretty.

Whay? What is the guy trying to accomplish? Lower ins/taxes/registartion?

If I could block you from posting on any of my threads, would gladly do it. You may be a professor but frankly do not care what you think.

I have had several vehicles owned by a private trust for years, and a good friend of mine has been doing it for 15 years. The rich do it, so why cant we?

I have a state issued registration number for the trust. Every time I go to the DMV just give them the number and they ask what I would like to do today. Its a bit late for them to catch me as they know where both the trust and I can be found. Its legal, safe and going to continue using it.

Jim,

My gut feeling is that he is simply getting tired of the games that Kalifornia is playing and is trying to look ahead and protect himself. Now that the smog regulations are changing from county to county and what passed this month may not be legal next month does not give one a "warm and fuzzy" feeling.

Besides a trust protects the owner in several ways and from what I have seen is a good idea for any owner.

Your thoughts on this?

Thx,

Joe

I was doing Phoenix PD ride-alongs in beautiful Sunny Slope. We were running license plates and bro-in-law commented that the Camry in front of us was registered to a trust, when I asked him what that meant to him he commented that the only information he could view was the trust name. There are no drivers names/records/priors/nada linked to the vehicle registration.
I found that very interesting. Got to thinking about doing what folks have described in the posts above.
But what else? Are you shielded from certain liabilities? In case of accidents, property damage, etc, is the rest of your estate protected?
What are the benefits?

Benefit is that the vehicle is owned by the trust, not a private person.

Anyone can drive the vehicle, but they have to have permission in writing from the trustee.

It shields everyone from various things and should something happen they can take what is in the trust but thats it, as I understand it.

Also should someone get married, or are in a common law marriage, you split the property owned by the two people. Anything in the trust is separate and not included.

Another friend of mine owned a house in Colorado. His kids used it to live in while in college there but it was not needed now and wanted to sell it. Several years ago the state passed new laws that selling a house that was not a persons primary residence had an additional 22% tax tacked on it. Asked him why he had not put the house in a trust like his Arizona one was and he said it was! In the end he did not sell the house, but sold the trust that controlled the house. Saved over $100,000 in that manner. He did everything legally yet found a loophole. Why not if its legal?

Last, good friend of mine passed three years ago. Every thing major that they owned was in the trust and the wife was secondary trustee. The money she saved in not having to go through probate and estate taxes kept the family in the house and able to survive.

A trust can protect and save you a lot of hassle and money. The rich and famous use them so why not us? When the child molestor Mikey Jackson died, everything in his estate did not go to his family, it went into a private trust that the family controlled.

Just sayin.....

Listen up, chucklehead - you post on a public forum, you take the replies you get - you can always set your filter to Ignore.

Your post will be read by lots of others, not just you, so assume I am posting to prevent somebody else from getting hammered if they try to use a trust to evade any state (or federal, county, etc.) law.

It is legal to set up a trust and to have it own a vehicle. it is not legal to use it to evade taxes, registration fees, or pollution testing.

People that try that can experience "unpleasant side effects."

If you are rich, you pay a lawyer to do it right and to make sure you get the advantage of the "legal loopholes" without doing anything illegal with it.

Not trying to get between Randal and Joey but the thing to take from this thread is trusts and estate taxation are not to be planned/strategized via online car forums.

Just too much underlying detail to consider in so many ways.

An attorney friend from Indiana bought and registered his air plane here in MT to avoid sales tax and other registration fees.
Under a Montana LLC, post office box is here, plane spends 20% of it's time here. Based on the planes registered here it's very common. I would bet only about 40% are on the field (KBZN) at any time.
He does own property here
Saved $75K in sales tax.

Trusts I don't know the advantages on cars or planes.

RWebb - don't be a dick. If the guy doesn't want you to post, why in the world would you bother?

Joeaksa, First off is it a pure trust??? many kinds out there.

I am not a owner of a pure trust but I do manage a pure trust.

This is my response, I would never say to someone: " I've just purchased a Pure Trust and put all of my assets into it, now my entire profit has become non-taxable"

Very stupid statement and not true but I would say:" I've just accepted a position as the manager of a company which is organized as a Pure Trust. I was appointed by the Board of trustees. I am not one of the owners. The actual owners are a matter of public record. I file my own individual tax return and pay all the taxes that are legally due, based on my individual income."

"Yes, I used to own my own property and equipment. I exchanged all that for some shares and no longer own those assets. I no longer have to spend my time being totally responsible for all that property and equipment. Now I just have shares to look after instead".

A Pure Trust has a recorded T.I.N. number, the trust that I manage was recorded in New Mexico and it is recorded in the county I live in WA state, there is a certificate holder.

You can not get out of paying taxes on property with a Pure Trust but you could with an Alloidial Title which has more hoops and loops to jump thru than what its worth.

I don't know who owns the Pure Trust but they are out of State and I have no idea how to contact the Trustees, their names are a matter of public record.

If the Trust that you manage is all above water, I would expect no questions because everything would have been explained when you became a managing director and that privilage cost this manager 5K in 1996.

sure it is... why do you think people from washington buy stuff in oregon?
you folks dont pay sales tax.

why do i get gas north or east of oregon....to avoid having some min-wage idiot pumping my own gas and effing up my wipers when they try to clean the windshield.

why do people register their cars as collector vehicles??? to stop having to ever give the state a dime in fees.

Trust are a very good thing, there are many people who really don't have anything on paper, but there is "Trust".. And it is not just to save on taxes, but to protect yourself from many different things, including the government. I have many friends who do this and it is one way to avoid being cleaned out. I for-one look at it as protection..

Joe, I think you are being a it tough on webb, as a lawyer from anothere state, he may have a different view..

Does anyone really think that those guys at Rennfest actually own those cars...;)

I see NOTHING whatsoever wrong with this. The name of the game is rapidly becoming "us versus them". The "us" is the average working person in America out there who's trying to make a living, maybe support a family and collect a few trinkets and protect a modest amount of wealth along the way. The "them" is the government machine, headed by career politicians who are usually lawyers - professionally trained to do nothing but steal the wealth of others by whatever means possible. The "thems" are control freaks and want to destroy the wealth of all the "us-es" in order to use it as THEY see fit. This is the game. The battle lines are drawn.

Knowing this, I see absolutely NOTHING wrong with availing onesself of whatever legal tools, loopholes or clever interpretations of the existing laws exist in order to protect one's interests from the "thems". Trusts, corporations, shell companies, etc. are all fair game as long as done legally. I do not condone breaking the law, but doing everything and anything possible to avoid getting screwed is perfectly fair game and frankly to NOT do so is idiocy and a quick path to bankruptcy given the increasingly greedy demands of the "thems".

This thread is well-timed. I have been doing a little research into this for purposes of an airplane I'm thinking about buying in the next 12-18 months. I want to make damn certain I've got the minimum associated tax liability and that my personal assets are protected in the event of an accident or incident. Again - I see nothing whatsoever wrong with this. There are 50 states. Whether they like it or not, they're in competition with each other. If the rules, regulations, laws, etc. are unacceptable in one there are 49 others to look at. I consider that a resource and to ignore it is folly.

My auto registration and insurance are damn cheap where I currently am, but if there's a way to get it even better I'm all for it. There's a reason ships are all registered in Liberia, Budget trucks are all registered in Oklahoma, etc. Taxes my friends. They give you exactly a 0% return on investment and looking at these things as business decisions leads one to realize that money is FAR better invested/spent elsewhere.

It is a interesting idea.
A few shiping corporations are registered out of Oregon and pay no sales tax. Their equipment circulates throughout the country regularly.
Where your friend might run into a problem is if the case goes before a judge who decides to dig deep into the matter.

I believe Cali laws require the vehicle to be physically present in the state no more than x amount of time out of the year. (30 days? 60 days?)

Trust or no trust, if the time limit is exceeded the vehicle must be registered in Cali. He may have to somehow prove the vehicle was not present in the state through parking tickets etc...which may be difficult.


Just a caveate. The cure may be worse than the cause.
Getting it registered under a "special use" clause may be easier in the long run.

In a parrallel, Mike Tyson attempted to get reduced non-homestead taxes for his Ohio home, and lost. Apparently he couldn't "prove" his non-presence. Ohio Tax Board Rules Against Mike Tyson - News Story - WPXI Pittsburgh

Trusts are used to get around other issues, and to make other things easier - like owning spoons that are listed in the NFA registry if your local CLEO doesn't want to sign off, or if you want multiple people to be able to possess them.

I say if it is legal, do it.

It is legal, thats why many people are doing it.

I have had a trust for years now and started it for one reason. I was looking at getting married but being in my mid to late 50's do not want to lose 50% of everything should the marriage not work and we had to split up later on.

That way the cars, house, airplane, motorcycles and so on would all be protected. I do not own them, the trust does.

Once in the middle of this found that there are a lot of other very nice benefits to having a trust. Am not trying to break any law, but if there is a loophole that can be used to my benefit why not?