Taxing stored motorhomes

[tmoning]

Self-storage owners in Virginia may have to provide their local commissioner of revenue with the names and addresses of out-of-state residents who store recreation vehicles at their outdoor storage facilities.

House Bill 2289 passed the General Assembly in late February. If the governor signs it, the bill would take effect July 1. As of Jan. 1, 2010, RVs and boats stored in self-storage by out-of-state residents would be taxed by the state.

Apparently, out-of-state residents are storing their RVs at fenced storage locations. By law, revenue commissioners are not permitted inside the storage facilities to collect license-plate numbers and other information about the vehicles.

The state prepresentative who sponsored the bill said the proposed legislation is fair because Virginians who own RVs and boats are taxed on their vehicles.

Out-of-state RV owners who leave their vehicles parked at campgrounds are subject to tax under existing law, if those campgrounds are accessible to the public.

I wonder how privacy rights proponents are reacting to this bill. Should be interesting to see how it plays out ....

[garykd]

Laws are not meant to be fair, they are just meant to be laws. States better realize those they tax are their customers. In the USA citizens (customers) have the right to place our domicile and assets where ever it benefits us. States that tax unfairly (customer's view) will loose their business. The loss will, most likely be forever (along with all the additional trickle down tax revenue generated by these folks visiting the state). Now that more and more people can work remote from their employer's "office building" states must compete for these people to make their domicile in their state. Adding taxes is going the wrong way.

When it comes to retirees, the subject gets even more interesting.

[pianodan]

This same business came up when I was active as the commander of the San Diego United States Power Squadrons, and again in the late '90s for boat owners, and it mostly affected the liveaboards who would anchor out utilizing no services of the (eastern seaboard) state where they anchored. It came up in our board meetings in San Diego because we had two free anchorage areas in the bay, and the communities that the water touched were looking for a way to generate revenue from the liveaboard boat owners. It got quelled there for awhile, I have no idea what it is like now, but I think it was Virginia that confiscated some boats anchored out to collect personal property tax from the owners by virtue of the fact they were technically residing in their state long enough to qualify as residents (the boats were Coast Guard documented, didn't require state registrations), so the state felt they weren't getting the taxes due them.

Hopefully the issue wil be stuffed, everybody's out looking for more money, and the recreational communities are always an easy target.