cmcul8r@hotmail.com

My wife Joye and I just addressed this issue by becoming members of the ESCAPEES RV Club and Texas residents. We were previously residents of South Carolina, which has state income and sales taxes, as well as property taxes on motor vehicles. The sales tax on motor vehicles, when purchased, is limited to $300. But, what hurt us the most was the county "property" taxes, (lets just say it is more than $3000 a year on just our motor home). We considered going to South Dakota, but SD has a one time "excise" tax on your vehicles. They do adjust it based on any sales tax that you have already paid, but because we only paid $300 sales tax in SC, the difference would have been over $6000. So, having talked to a Texas resident and found out they did not have a property tax on motor vehicles, I made some additional inquiries through our Discovery Owners Association. I was referred to ESCAPEES.com and found a paper on their home page titled "How to Become a Texan" which discussed a lot of the legal issues and told you what was needed to become a Texas resident. Essentially, I found out that Texas does not have a state income tax, and as I mentioned, no property tax on motor vehicles as long as they are not used for business purposes. Also, they do have a sales tax 6.25% on your vehicles, if purchased after you become a resident. Unlike SD, when we registered our vehicles in Texas, we paid a one time new resident fee of $90 per vehicle, and the registration/tag fees for each vehicle, which was based on the weight of the vehicles. We ended up paying $670 to register our motor home and two vehicles, which was so much better than having to pay the annual property tax on the motorhome. On the other hand, Texas does have an annual vehicle inspection requirement, but we were told that, being full timers and being out of the state the majority of the time, we can have the vehicles inspected next time we pass through Texas, which we do once a year anyway. So, you might want to consider Texas. Good luck, Carl Cook