DMV Help?

[Don Bradner]

A license fee of $1000 would indicate that they value at $150,000 (license fee
is 2/3 of 2% of value). The rules state "cost price to the purchaser as
evidenced by a certificate of cost, bill of sale, titling document, or Kelley
Blue Book"

They normally accept Bill of Sale unless they have some reason to believe it was
seriously undervalued, at which point they would go to Blue Book.

The above assumes it was purchased from out-of-state, and registered within 20
days of entering California. Penalties jack the fee progressively higher after
20 days.

The above also assumes we are truly talking about license fee, and not Use Tax;
the latter would be a minimum of 7.25%.

Contesting anything with the DMV is typically a matter for the courts, but this
is something I would contact your assembly person's office about, at least to
force an explanation.

On 7/13/2007 at 5:03 PM Keith Strehle wrote:

>When I called to ask why the license fee was so high the DMV wouldn't
>tell me the value they had listed for the Bird. But they did say it
>was much higher than the sale price. The license fee is over $1k.
>
>If they came up with their own idea of what the bird is worth how did
>they do it? They had no idea what kind of condition it was in when I
>bought it. For all they know it could be sitting on blocks. And why
>would they see the bird as different from SOB?
>
>How do I go about contesting this perceived value?