Texas Vehicle Inventory Tax Scam!

I'm in the process of buying a 2010 Tacoma and got a copy of the purchase order agreement today. I started reviewing it and immediately noticed a $0.11 error in the dealer's math. So this got me looking into what the tax rates were and how the dealership calculated them.

Upon doing a little research into what each tax item was for I found this posting on consumerist.com
http://consumerist.com/2008/03/if-y...make-sure-you-dont-pay-the-inventory-tax.html

Granted the links were old and busted so I did a little searching and found the 2010 Dealer Manual on TX DoMV's site:
http://www.txdmv.gov/whatyouneed/publications/dealer/dealer_manual.htm

Sure enough on page 1-3 it details the Vehicle Inventory Tax (VIT) as the following:
"Vehicle Inventory Tax (VIT) - A property tax that dealers pay on their business inventory. This is NOT a tax that is required to be paid by the consumer."

So as a heads up to anyone out there buying a vehicle in Texas this is a tax for the dealership not you and you DON'T have to pay it.

 

The link to http://www.txdmv.gov/whatyouneed/publications/dealer/dealer_manual.htm
does not work. Does anyone have a working link?

Al

 

Found the link to the 2017 Dealers Manual: http://www.txdmv.gov/publications-dealers/doc_download/5645-motor-vehicle-dealer-manual
The relevant info is on page 1-5.

 

I've worked in car and RV dealerships for over 20 years. Every dealer charges an inventory tax, usually less than $100. They also charge some sort of documentary fee as well, usually under $200. Both fees are not required by law, but the law allows dealers to charge these fees. These are normal fees that 99% of dealers charge. Trust me, it's worth $150 bucks so you don't have to go stand in line at the tax office to get your vehicle titled.

It will be difficult to get a dealer to waive these fees, because it opens them up to a lawsuit if they waive it for one person, but not others. When I have had a customer complain about these fee's, I have sometimes lowered the price of the vehicle the same cost, and still listed them as charges. I have also many times refused to waive them if the price for the vehicle is so low, there is no room.

Your time would be better spent arguing over pre-installed addons, like paint sealer, fabric sealer, window tint, etc that they add to the window sticker as addendums. Toyota is unique that they add some of these fake addons at the port via Gulf States Toyota, and are allowed to add them to the window sticker making them look like real options from the factory when they aren't.