There was a time when international jet purchase/delivery was done out above international waters, and yes, it was to avoid taxes etc. Also because once someone has your plane it’s kind of hard to chase them down, not to mention who’s laws would apply where, etc.
The plane took off from US soil with the airplane company pilot in the cockpit, once over international waters bankers would make phone calls, numbers would be exchanged, confirmation of ‘funds received’ arrives and control of the plane is handed off to the purchaser’s pilot, return to US soil and drop the sellers and their pilot and everyone goes merrily on there way!
(In fact, I asked about this when I first came to the board, and was met with disdain by the regular flyboys. I was being naive, foolish, ridiculous! I did not take kindly to being dismissed so I dug up a cite. They fell quiet, till next day when someone working in the industry announced he had done some asking around where he worked and was shocked to discover that it did indeed used to happen just that way! )
It is right, but should have specified the 80’s Euro cars that were brought in were mostly diesel, and thus exempt from emission standards. About 10,000 of them still driving around the states. The Mercedes look better than the American models, as they have the Euro spec bumpers and lights. Also they came with options not available in America like indestrustable manual transmissions and beautiful upholstery.
And somebody upthread says it is still far cheaper to get a German car in Germany. Even if we can only personally import the American approved models now.
Perhaps the OP would prefer one to a Lexus. A free vacation driving about Europe is quite the perk.
Well, firstly, the thing with the tourist delivery isn’t that it’s cheaper to buy a car there. The issue is that there are various protectionist tariffs placed on new cars being brought into the US, but going over and driving your car around a bit first enables them to treat it like a used car and evade the tariff. You’re still actually “buying” the car in the US, you’re just taking delivery of it in Europe (and then putting it on the same ship all the other US-bound BMWs and Benzes go on).
There’s always been various ways to bring in grey market (i.e. non-US Spec) cars, either by jumping through some increasingly-difficult hoops to get the car certified to meet US standards OR by somehow evading customs and just trying to fly under the radar in a state whose DMV doesn’t really care. In the former case, even back when it was just a matter of swapping some lenses and bumpers, it was still a hassle and potentially expensive (and now is usually impossible). In the latter, there’s a small but nevertheless existent risk that the feds will somehow take interest and seize your car. Just ask any Nissan Skyline or later-model Land Rover Defender owner. In either case, grey market importing was something people did because they wanted a cool and unique car, definitely not a way to save money.
You may be right that it was still easy-ish to import a diesel into the early 80’s, but I’m still fairly sure it was never common. My understanding is that the provenance of most of the run-of-the-mill grey market cars like those two W123’s you posted are diplomatic staff and military members. In the case of diplomats, they’re allowed to bring their own cars into the country while they’re working but they’re supposed to either ship them home afterwards or destroy them. But they could usually get away with selling them to someone in a state that didn’t care about the federal rules. Ditto with military members-- the military would ship servicepeople’s personal cars from bases in Europe back to the states without passing through customs, at which point they could get away with registering them in the more lackadaisical states.
Of course one other possibility is that since you are allowed to bring in non-US spec cars older than 25 years, those old 80’s Benzes could have been brought in sometime in the last few years. That also means that folks who might have been trying to keep their grey market cars on the down low can start freely advertising them after they hit the quarter century mark.
Huh?
You pay provincial sales tax (in almost every province, AFAIK) for used cars.
If it’s a dealership, the dealer collects the tax and gives you a receipt you show to the provincial registration authorities. If it’s a private sale, you won’t have a receipt, you’ll pay the license bureau when you register the car and get plates.
Not sure if the same rule applies to GST, the federal tax. I think it does, an exception to the “no GST on used items” rule. I think the dealers typically collect GST on the used vehicle, but not private sellers. (If you sell too many vehicles in a year, the province will eventually come after you to get a dealer license). IIRC, the dealer subtracts the cost of your trade-in from the sale price before charging GST, but then collects GST on the trade-in when it sells, so it all balances out in the end.
(The GST is essentially a VAT, but there are some exceptions.)
I heard from an accountant friend the humorous but probably urban legend story of when Manitoba went to provincial-mandated auto insurance. A Winnipeg insurance company retaliated by moving it’s head office, brand new fleet and employees to offices in Kenora, in Ontario, 120 miles down the road. They’d already paid sales tax on these brand new cars, but Ontario law was clear. A vehicle bought less than 6 months ago brought into the province - sales tax due. So they paid a second sales tax. After a few months, they realized the move was a dumb idea, moved everything back to Winnipeg. Manitoba had the same rule - the vehicles were still bought less than 6 months ago, and being moved into Manitoba from Ontario now - sales tax was due once again. Didn’t matter hey vehicles were previously registered and taxed in Manitoba - rules were rules. Paid the tax 3 times to fail to make a political point.
AFAIK the “buy overseas” still applies. At the time it was a bonus for American buyers and also BMW/Mercedes because the vehicle coming in pre-bought did not count against their quota of vehicles or some such. The advantage does not really exist in Canada, I think. Vehicles owned and used overseas for some time (6 months?) don’t count as new vehicles - so we see a number of, for example, used Japanese right-hand drives as interesting imports for hobbyists / collectors. generally, to configure as Canadian the headlights and some other parts have to be changed. (One web site mentioned the lens focus on headlights was different , especially for RHD vs. LHD).
One of my customers got in a boatload of trouble playing a similar game. They formed a tiny company in Oregon to buy tractor trailers outside CA then try to use them primarily in CA while claiming they were “based” out of an address that was a mailboxes etc in Oregon. One of them failed some kind of inspection at a weigh station and in the process of digging further CHP figured out this driver had not left the state in months and thought it was odd that a California company seemed to be operating trucks in CA, but only registered in Oregon. Inquiries were made and when the dust settled they owed CA about $80K for use taxes and registrations on several of their trucks.
Even for private cars, the law in most Canadian provinces, and I assume in most states, is that within some time (90 days? 3 months? 6 months?) if you move to a new jurisdiction you must transfer the registration.
The few exceptions I have seen - students who still claim an out-of-state home address, or the case I ran across of a contract worker. He was from Ontario, but he was working out west. For a clunker, Ontario insurance was cheaper (it had option of no collision coverage for his own vehicle) so he kept the Ontario registration. The justification was that he was still based here in Ontario, he had a home here, he was just on a term contract for 6 months living out west. Mind you, he was on the 3rd renewal of a 6-month contract. His argument was - give me more than 6 months at a time and maybe I’ll actually move there.
It all depends on what your actual base is - like the tax people, the transport department have some floating criteria that determine where your actual home location is. A simple PO Box is rarely sufficient.
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