Pretty common on GXVs and other expensive RVs to have them owned by a Montana LLC to avoid sales tax on the purchase.
Yeah, I’m fully aware of that clever move....just don’t like it. You can afford a $400k rig but you’re going to risk getting nailed by your home state or the cops for going the Montana LLC route? Oh well, not my rig, not my decision.
But the last time I drove through Tennessee, it sure seemed to me like they could use every single vehicle registration dollar they could get for road and bridge maintenance there.
I get asked from time to time about the so-called Montana License Plate Scam: Can you safely register your vehicle in Montana and drive it in your non-Montana home state? There are a couple problems which might crop up if you give it a try.
jalopnik.com
Anyhow, as to the new owner of this awesome rig, I just wouldn’t recommend following suit registration wise because other states—who’ve been losing out on these extra vehicle registration monies—in recent years have been cracking down on some of those Montana LLC vehicle registrations from non-Montana residents, and in one extreme case they’ve even charged an out of state registrant criminally with tax evasion.
Another example of the extreme is California....which wants all the money it can get from any and every potentially available source. There, the state Highway Patrol maintains a special website for people to use to report on their neighbors by reporting vehicles stored there that have Montana or other out-of-state plates. I find this hard to imagine, but I’ve read on some online RV Owner forums that other states are said to have inspectors occasionally checking out RV repair shops to search for vehicles with Montana plates. And some others reportedly even are checking RV storage lot for vehicles with Montana plates.
All I’m saying is, this kind of possible legal headache doesn’t seem worth the risk.