Question about the car taxes in CO (Denver: buying, construction)

[SkyDog77]

I just renewed my plates on my ‘04 4Runner. $73.00. Not sure I can ever get rid of it.

[daprara]

unlikely you will hear "I can't swing the new car payments because of the Colorado registration fees"

just remember you have an extra 30 days past the expiration date to renew

[daprara]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

I just renewed my plates on my ‘04 4Runner. $73.00. Not sure I can ever get rid of it.

unlikely you will hear "I can't swing the new car payments because of those Colorado registration fees"
I have never owned a "new" vehicle.
I would like to see new car owners pay more and the older vehicles pay less
a 10+year old vehicle pays no registration

[LHS79]

Originally Posted by daprara

unlikely you will hear "I can't swing the new car payments because of those Colorado registration fees"
I have never owned a "new" vehicle.
I would like to see new car owners pay more and the older vehicles pay less
a 10+year old vehicle pays no registration

This is EXACTLY how it works in CO.

Until we had the huge FASTER vehicle tax increase a few years ago (in 2009) a 10 year old car would have a flat fee of $10/year. Now that flat fee is something like $48.

And if you buy an expensive NEW car- watch out. Of course it does get cheaper every year until you hit the 10 year mark- but that first year is brutal for most folks.

And our roads are still cra* and over-crowded.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by daprara

unlikely you will hear "I can't swing the new car payments because of those Colorado registration fees"
I have never owned a "new" vehicle.
I would like to see new car owners pay more and the older vehicles pay less
a 10+year old vehicle pays no registration

That’s basically the system we have. It gets cheaper every year. New cars are EXPENSIVE.

[Cfella]

i just registered a 2002 Audi A4 in Jeffco last week and the taxes cost me $42. I put down a $500 sale price. Also, the car has a salvage title....not sure if that matters. My insurance was dirt cheap too. Gotta love the old cars.

[LHS79]

Originally Posted by Cfella

i just registered a 2002 Audi A4 in Jeffco last week and the taxes cost me $42. I put down a $500 sale price. Also, the car has a salvage title....not sure if that matters. My insurance was dirt cheap too. Gotta love the old cars.

There is a reason German car owners get rid of them when the warranties expire- your mechanic's kid will be getting some more college money very soon!

(Best of luck)

[DrDog]

Originally Posted by Quietude

Most states charge full sales tax on new purchases, sometimes a partial rate. It's one of those "Oh By The Way" costs people overlook until it shows up on the contract.

I think the sales tax is on net purchase price if you do a trade in.

[Quietude]

Originally Posted by LHS79

Until we had the huge FASTER vehicle tax increase a few years ago (in 2009) a 10 year old car would have a flat fee of $10/year. Now that flat fee is something like $48.

Wow. An increase of over $0.10 a day. We should storm the statehouse.

And our roads are still cra* and over-crowded.

All roads, everywhere, are overcrowded these days. It is not something unique to the front range.

But the enormous amount of money and engineering and construction time expended on thoroughly second-rate roads does continue to baffle me. I don't think I've seen the combination anywhere else.

[Mike from back east]

"All roads, everywhere, are overcrowded these days. It is not something unique to the front range."

True. It's everywhere. IMO it goes back a couple of decades when the Federal government declared the Interstate Highway system was complete and told the states that was the end of Federal involvement and going forward the states were on their own to maintain it and build any new highways. The Highway Trust Fund is still there but is woefully underfunded. To make matters worse, the Federal gasoline tax was never indexed for inflation and has lost at least a third of its buying power since it last was raised in 1993.


"But the enormous amount of money and engineering and construction time expended on thoroughly second-rate roads does continue to baffle me. I don't think I've seen the combination anywhere else."

See my first answer and then recall my many rants about how TABOR has handcuffs on the state. All the state can do is patch the patches. The very topic of this thread is a reflection of TABOR, i.e., in order to fund essential operations the state has all these gimmicky fees stuck to everything since they cannot get voter approval to raise the income tax. The nitpicky fees are a workaround the state uses to pay its bills. In my perfect world we'd calculate the total income from all the 'fees' then we'd build an equivalent amount into a hike in the income tax and then we cancel all the silly fees. But until the state gets rid of TABOR then the COLO forum will have endless crybaby whining about fees.