Expensive vehicle registration (Durango: rental car, rental, how much)

[Joey2k]

When I lived in Florida it cost me about $80 to register my vehicle. I was shocked that Colorado charged me $400. What exactly am I getting from Colorado that is worth 5x as much as Florida (where the overall tax burden is also lower, so they aren't making up for it in other ways).

Certainly not better roads.

[bluescreen73]

Colorado has roughly 185,000 lane miles of road and 6 million people. Compare that to Florida with 275,000 lane miles and 22 million people. We also have to deal with winter maintenance like plowing roads, repairing potholes, and mitigating rockfall. My advice - don't buy an expensive car, or hang onto a car forever like I do. I have my registration sitting in front of me. $77 this year.

The ad valorem piece is the big sticker shock. It goes down every year you own the car, and it bottoms out at $3 a year after year 10. You can claim it as a deduction on your federal tax return. Ad valorem amounts

[davebarnes]

Originally Posted by Joey2k

What exactly am I getting from Colorado

Higher paid county government employees.

[Joey2k]

Originally Posted by bluescreen73

Colorado has roughly 185,000 lane miles of road and 6 million people. Compare that to Florida with 275,000 lane miles and 22 million people. We also have to deal with winter maintenance like plowing roads, repairing potholes, and mitigating rockfall. My advice - don't buy an expensive car, or hang onto a car forever like I do. I have my registration sitting in front of me. $77 this year.

The ad valorem piece is the big sticker shock. It goes down every year you own the car, and it bottoms out at $3 a year after year 10. You can claim it as a deduction on your federal tax return. Ad valorem amounts

How much does it go down each year?

[Joey2k]

Originally Posted by davebarnes

Higher paid county government employees.

I guess that actually makes sense, somewhat, with the higher cost of living in general

[LHS79]

Originally Posted by bluescreen73

Colorado has roughly 185,000 lane miles of road and 6 million people. Compare that to Florida with 275,000 lane miles and 22 million people. We also have to deal with winter maintenance like plowing roads, repairing potholes, and mitigating rockfall. My advice - don't buy an expensive car, or hang onto a car forever like I do. I have my registration sitting in front of me. $77 this year.

The ad valorem piece is the big sticker shock. It goes down every year you own the car, and it bottoms out at $3 a year after year 10. You can claim it as a deduction on your federal tax return. Ad valorem amounts

After 10 years the minimum registration fee is around $45, it used to be $10 many years ago.

If you buy a new car the fees are quite a shock for sure.

[reed303]

Originally Posted by Joey2k

How much does it go down each year?

See Table 2 on page 2 at:

https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sit...ipTax%20IB.pdf

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by LHS79

After 10 years the minimum registration fee is around $45, it used to be $10 many years ago.

If you buy a new car the fees are quite a shock for sure.

Need to amend my post. My registration is $70, not $77. It was roughly the same last year because the car is 11 years old now.

The first 3 or 4 years can be a bear, and if you buy a new car every 3-5 years you're gonna pay out the nose. The bottom line is it costs us more to maintain our roads than it does in Florida and there are far fewer people to pay for it.

CDOT has a backlog of around $10 billion IIRC. Even with the high vehicle registration fees, they're woefully underfunded, so expect more toll roads/lanes going forward.

[BabyBoomers2]

We have a 2005 Dodge Durango, with 171,655 miles on it. When we changed the registration from Florida to here, in August 2019, it cost us $25 for smog and $90 for new plates/tags. Our last registration, August 2020 to August 2021, it was $78. Like our 1992 powerboat, we've had to put some money into it, to keep it running.

Now, what I'm seeing more and more of here, as I also seen in Florida, people are keeping, some how, their registration with the state they left. People don't put window decals on rental cars, but definitely do it to private cars. That's how I can tell, generally, the vehicle with the out-of-state plate that has window decals on it isn't a rental.

Or, as many people will say here, about Colorado, "to have nice/new things, it isn't cheap here".

[NW Crow]

On average, the property tax RATE in Colorado is 44% less than the average in Florida.

If a state / locale is high or low on one tax or fee, it is probably offset elsewhere. If one is super focused on lowest taxes, get all the details for you or look at reports of the estimated average overall taxes. There are tiers of high and low tax states but the middle states are pretty close imo.