Virginia Personal Property Tax

[Nice2CTu]

It’s technically not legal in most states because of laws that give a grace period only for registering a vehicles that spend time in that state - 60 or 90 days in most. I have this issue and roll the dice - I move my boats and jet skis and one road vehicle every spring and fall between Florida and Maryland. They stay for 6 months in each - in MD you can get a temporary nonresident registration for six months or a year, but only if you are military, a student, a temporary employee with documentation, or a nonresident visitor without owning or renting real estate. I don’t qualify for any of those, own homes in both states. My permanent residency is Florida for tax purposes, a that’s where we have driver licenses and vote. In the case of Florida, it is even worse - we technically have only 10 days to re-register a vehicle moved there. So I register everything in Florida and take my chances with Maryland. The one antique vehicle that I keep in Maryland is registered there.


When I owned a farm in Virginia, we registered only a couple old pickups there, with low PP taxes, and registered everything else in FL - we were never hassled, although a local cop did pull me over for speeding and then let me go when he realized I owned a local business - he admitted that he only pulls over out-of-state vehicles because the drivers almost never make him go to court. Virginia just sucks.

Virginia law requires property tax filing for vehicles registered in another state if those vehicles reside in virginia over a set period of time. I don't know how they enforce that, but if you are caught in arrears, 20% penalty plus interest and back payment.

Sponsored

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Virginia law requires property tax filing for vehicles registered in another state if those vehicles reside in virginia over a set period of time. I don't know how they enforce that, but if you are caught in arrears, 20% penalty plus interest and back payment.

That’s normally 60 days, but in some Virginia counties it’s 30 days. However, it’s irrelevant, as you must ALSO register a resident vehicle in Virginia within 30 days, so the laws are concomitant, overlapping. When you register a vehicle with the Virginia DMV, the county tax office is automatically notified and the vehicle is added to the local personal property tax rolls. If you fail to do either there are penalties, even though the personal property tax side is supposed to be an automatic side effect of registration.

As in FL and MD, VA has no real policing of the registration (or in their case, the personal property tax notification), but make friends with your neighbors because that’s how most people get reported/caught. Any report must be followed up, and in my experience that’s how people normally get caught.

This is a real catch-22 for snowbirds because in order to follow the law as written inmost states, and certainly these three, you would need to re-register every six months when switching homes. This is one reason that many folks keep vehicles permanently in each location. We do this, but also bring a couple of vehicles and water vessels back and forth. It’s frustrating more than the money involved, because it would cost at least four days every year of administrative hassle to religiously comply. In Florida it is no longer even possible to show up at the county assessors’ offices - you must make an online appointment, bring the vehicle for VIN inspection, etc. Simply unreasonable, and therefore untenable, begging to be flaunted.

 

[Nice2CTu]

That’s normally 60 days, but in some Virginia counties it’s 30 days. However, it’s irrelevant, as you must ALSO register a resident vehicle in Virginia within 30 days, so the laws are concomitant, overlapping. When you register a vehicle with the Virginia DMV, the county tax office is automatically notified and the vehicle is added to the local personal property tax rolls. If you fail to do either there are penalties, even though the personal property tax side is supposed to be an automatic side effect of registration.

As in FL and MD, VA has no real policing of the registration (or in their case, the personal property tax notification), but make friends with your neighbors because that’s how most people get reported/caught. Any report must be followed up, and in my experience that’s how people normally get caught.

This is a real catch-22 for snowbirds because in order to follow the law as written inmost states, and certainly these three, you would need to re-register every six months when switching homes. This is one reason that many folks keep vehicles permanently in each location. We do this, but also bring a couple of vehicles and water vessels back and forth. It’s frustrating more than the money involved, because it would cost at least four days every year of administrative hassle to religiously comply. In Florida it is no longer even possible to show up at the county assessors’ offices - you must make an online appointment, bring the vehicle for VIN inspection, etc. Simply unreasonable, and therefore untenable, begging to be flaunted.

We're looking to move to VA in the Staunton area early=mid 2027, coming from Florida, and I have two Teslas and estimating property taxes using Grok, et al. However, the auto insurance between Florida and rural VA is cheaper and completely offsets the property taxes. No guarantee that will always be true, but so far nice to know. The hassles you describe for twin residency is abysmal and egregious, IMO. We prefer 4 seasons, mountains and nature, so FL is not our ideal, but the Florida tax and governance is superior

 

[PungoteagueDave]

Interesting. We lived in about as rural a place that exists in Virginia, a waterfront farm in its poorest county. It was 15 miles to the nearest town and we had a mile+ gravel driveway. When COVID hit and everything at our VA and MD places shut down, we were on the first airplane out of BWI to South Florida, scoped the housing market in a no-touch survey, and purchased a waterfront home in Boynton Beach. It’s an urbanized area but we found that everything is less expensive, not just zero income taxes.

Our home insurance went down, auto insurance rates declined, and of course, no income taxes. We are finally exiting the last vestiges of our time in Virginia next week, having sold the oyster business to our former farm manager. We couldn’t switch to FL licenses, voting and registrations fast enough. Best decision ever.

I guess that it’s probably time to change my screen name on this forum, as Pungoteague was our post office address in Virginia (so rural there was no postal delivery, just PO boxes). We will miss much of that life, but the reality is that Virginia politics has gone totally off the rails, and Florida is thriving.

Having grown up in Baltimore and raised our kids in Ellicott City, we still have a place in MD on Kent Island to be near family and friends. However, zero nexus there for any government interaction except the house and one vehicle.

Maryland is even worse than Virginia. We gave up Maryland residency and tax reporting when Martin O’Malley became governor and instituted a new “millionaire” tax that in reality affected everyone making over $150k. We had lots of company in that exodus, but then watched in chagrin as Virginia began to turn blue around 2008. So we’re simply out of the people’s republic in the Mid-Atlantic and northeast.

As I tell my friends who’ve stayed behind, it is a choice to pay state taxes, endure cold weather, and have short days in winter. We get a full hour more sun in Florida compared to Maryland in the depths of winter, and a full two hours more than Toronto or Seattle, hence many snowbird neighbors. When we want snow it is also a choice.

 

[Killlbox]

That sounds to good to be true! Anyone else has done that?

Yes, but make sure your driver’s license is also from Montana. Most of these services can do that. You want the plate to match the license if you get pulled over.

 

[CyberGus]

Whistin' Diesel just got arrested for registering his Ferarri in Montana

 

[65SoYoLO]

Whistin' Diesel just got arrested for registering his Ferarri in Montana

Ha-ha. Not a fan.

 

[Cyber AI]

I guess this tax scam getting media attention.

 

[Swalltr]

It is our patriotic duty to pay our fair share of taxes.

Why do you hate America

is this satire? A lot gets lost in translation, but the tax code is written to incentivize not paying taxes, which could also be argued as being patriotic. Boston tea party?

 

[PungoteagueDave]

is this satire? A lot gets lost in translation, but the tax code is written to incentivize not paying taxes, which could also be argued as being patriotic. Boston tea party?

The entire tax code is about incentivizing (manipulating) taxpayer behavior. Depreciation provisions, S-corps, EV credits for the wealthy, low income housing tax credits, historic rehab tax credits, renewable energy credits, child tax credits, mortgage interest deduction, SALT deductions, and on and on.

We never see these sanctimonious hypocrites voluntarily forgo their pet tax benefits or make a contribution to the state or federal coffers. Just ignore them.

Much taxation is legal government theft. My advice is to relocate to a state with no income taxes, no personal property taxes, and regressive revenues that fund most government functions, like real estate taxes, sales taxes, lotteries and sin taxes, all of which are completely optional and based entirely on consumption choices. These types of taxes also ensure that government funding is broad-based and that the 49% of U.S. income earners who pay no Federal income taxes will participate in some level of civic funding.

This is the thing that the “the wealthy should pay their fair share” crowd on the left either ignores or leaves out. The top 1% pays 44% of all Federal income taxes, the top 10% pays 76% of all income taxes, the top 25% pays 88% of all income taxes, while the bottom 50% pays under 3% of all Federal income taxes. Don’t let anyone say the tax system is fair or about patriotism, or that anyone isn’t paying their share. It’s all about the political system picking winners and losers.

 

[Nice2CTu]

Update from Grok on tax payments:


The statement is mostly accurate but slightly outdated or rounded, based on the most recent IRS data for tax year 2022 (the latest fully available as of December 2025).


Here's a comparison using data from reliable sources analyzing IRS Statistics of Income (SOI):

Income Group	Statement Claim	Actual (2022 Data)	Sources/Notes
Top 1%	44%	~40.4%	Tax Foundation (2025 update), National Taxpayers Union (NTU) PDF; down from 45.8% in 2021 due to lower capital gains realizations.
Top 10%	76%	~76% (or ~72-76% depending on exact breakout)	NTU reports top 10% at 76% (consistent with prior years); some breakdowns show top 5-10% adding to similar totals.
Top 25%	88%	~87.2%	Visual Capitalist, NTU, and cross-referenced IRS analyses.
Bottom 50%	Under 3%	~2.96-3%	NTU (2.96%), Tax Foundation and others (~3%); top 50% pay ~97-97.04%.

These figures refer specifically to federal individual income taxes (not including payroll, corporate, excise, or estate taxes). The U.S. federal income tax system is highly progressive, with shares fluctuating yearly based on economic conditions (e.g., stock market performance affecting high earners' capital gains).


The claimed numbers align closely with data from 2021 (top 1%: 45.8%; bottom 50%: 2.3%) or rounded averages from recent years. For the absolute latest (2022), the top 1% share is closer to 40%, but the overall distribution remains very similar to the statement.

 

[Cybertruck2024]

So the tax burden has moved from 1%ers to people making $150k a year. Genius plan by the ultra rich to save huge amounts of money, while making it so the bottom 75% of tax payers stay happy because the country is taxing "the rich." The grift will continue slowly over time.

It's funny when the argument being made for a point backfires and ends up being a counter-argument.

 

[PungoteagueDave]

So the tax burden has moved from 1%ers to people making $150k a year. Genius plan by the ultra rich to save huge amounts of money, while making it so the bottom 75% of tax payers stay happy because the country is taxing "the rich." The grift will continue slowly over time.

It's funny when the argument being made for a point backfires and ends up being a counter-argument.

There is no such shift. You are talking about minor y/y data anomalies. My numbers were accurate. The wealthy are carrying society. Payroll taxes have nothing to do with income taxes. They are payments for specific benefits to the individual payee such as insurance and retirement.

 

[Cyber AI]

Staying on topic, I think if we put enough pressure to our state delegates push for stop using JD power as a source of data to calculate CT value. It is mind boggling that CT tax value 145k when I paid half.

 

[CyberGus]

Apparently, it's not just Cybertrucks:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/virginia-man-warns-us-drivers-121500101.html

When Martin compared his Amherst County assessment with online pricing guides, the difference was hard to ignore. The county valued his minivan at $42,200, only a few thousand less than what he paid new three and a half years ago.​

​

Edmunds, TrueCar and Kelley Blue Book all placed the van’s current value much lower, landing between $30,000 and $35,000. His truck showed a similar discrepancy.​

​

Some lawmakers say the broader system needs an overhaul. Del. Tim Griffin told ABC 13 he plans to revive a bill to repeal Virginia’s car tax when the General Assembly returns.​

Sponsored