What state do you register your RV in? How does that work as far as your drivers license and insurance are concerned?Does your "home" state require a state inspection?Does your home state require excise tax?What do you do about a primary care physician?How do you handle regular doctors check ups?What do you list as your primary residence on your license?

MagillaGorilla wrote:What state do you register your RV in? How does that work as far as your drivers license and insurance are concerned?- Texas. We use Escapees for our mail service and our address there is our domicile address, and what is on or DL's and all other documents. We are registered to vote in Polk county and do so by mail.Does your "home" state require a state inspection?Yes - but you have 72 hours from returning to the state to get the inspections done ( that changed this year)Does your home state require excise tax?No.What do you do about a primary care physician?Kept our old one in Dallas. I'm on some meds so he has me get blood drawn once a quarter and sent to him. He adjusts med prescriptions as needed.How do you handle regular doctors check ups?Return to Dallas annually for physicalsWhat do you list as your primary residence on your license?Our Escapee address

arhayes wrote:MagillaGorilla wrote:Our Escapee addressx2. Check out the Escapees web site and services offered. They have a complete guide on becoming a resident of the three states where they have mail services, etc. We will domicile in Texas when we go full-time later this year (have been a Texas resident before).

MagillaGorilla wrote:What state do you register your RV in? How does that work as far as your drivers license and insurance are concerned?We have a Florida mail forwarding service that provides an "legal" address.Does your "home" state require a state inspection?NODoes your home state require excise tax?NOWhat do you do about a primary care physician?We spend 7 months a year in Kentucky so our physicians are located there. They provide 12 months of prescriptions. If in the other 5 months we need medical care, we seek a "Doc in the Box."How do you handle regular doctors check ups?Done when we are in Kentucky. What do you list as your primary residence on your license?See your first question.

We have a friend letting us "rent" from him.....we're renting a bedroom. He gets our mail, tosses junk mail and forwards when we tell him. That covers our insurances and driver's licenses. Our "renters" insurance covers the cost of anything we have in storage or in our rig. Our car insurance and RV insurance cover the truck and rig.Oregon doesn't have an excise tax that I know of and no inspections.We have kept our "family doctor". We go to Oregon once a year (well, we WILL...we've been on the road for 6 months)....and will have appointments for everything. We will get a year's worth of prescriptions written up. If we get ill on the road, then urgent care clinics and hospital ERs. We carry our medical report written up by our doctor.Eventually, we're going to be going to South Dakota for residency and mail forwarding.

MagillaGorilla wrote:What state do you register your RV in? How does that work as far as your drivers license and insurance are concerned?What do you list as your primary residence on your license?Texas - Escapee's - however we were Texas residents for over 20 years before that. For us it was simple as moving to a new home. We actually got a break on vehicle insurance from moving out of a high cost county (Collin) to a low cost county (Polk).You have to have a 'legal residence' and your driver's license, insurance, vehicle registration, voting registration - all need to be the same address.Read the Escapee's document on how to setup Texas residency. It is a good guide to the process even if you choose to establish your legal residence somewhere else.MagillaGorilla wrote:Does your "home" state require a state inspection?Always has. No big deal. No change in policy/ practice for us.MagillaGorilla wrote:Does your home state require excise tax?Texas charges a sales tax on purchase of a vehicle / RV / trailer. There is a cost of between $55 and $75 per year of license tag renewal. If we purchase a new vehicle or RV out of state we will have to pay the Texas sales tax to register that vehicle in Texas (and can almost always get a break on the purchase state sales tax to offset the cost). This is pretty much standard anywhere in any state.There is not a yearly property or excise tax in Texas.MagillaGorilla wrote:What do you do about a primary care physician?How do you handle regular doctors check ups?Most people we meet on the road keep the same doctors they had before taking off in their RV. Most doctors will work with you to plan a yearly or semi-annual visit, and write long term prescriptions.However, it is essential that you sit down with your doctor and discuss the impact of long term travel and your individual health conditions.We will be going 11 months between visits this year. My wife's eye surgeon/ doctor and my endocrinologist have both contacted doctors in the location where we will be hosting this summer - and arranged for us to make a six month visit with them, and forward the results to our regular doctors.We've met some folks who have left their old home states behind, and setup up residence in different states. Most establish as winter location in the southern parts of the country.No trouble finding a new primary care physician. Those locations have plenty of seniors who move to those areas and need new doctors. The full-time RVers are just part of the crowd.

Some basic questions about fulltiming | Good Sam Community

13 Replies

mockturtle
Explorer II
Mar 25, 2015
MagillaGorilla wrote:
What state do you register your RV in? How does that work as far as your drivers license and insurance are concerned? Washington. Works fine for me.

Does your "home" state require a state inspection? No.

Does your home state require excise tax? No, but the sales tax is horrendous.

What do you do about a primary care physician? I see my PA once a year in order to get my prescriptions renewed.

How do you handle regular doctors check ups? See above.

What do you list as your primary residence on your license? I use my sister's address which is my 'home' address.
jrp
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
The recurring annual tax that Mass calls an excise tax, is called a Personal Property Tax in other states where its used. That type of tax does not apply in either SD, TX or FL.
IN SD you pay a one time 3% tax (soon to be 4%) on the value of the vehicle when you purchase a new one or register a transfer from another state, If you have the previous bill of sale showing that you already paid your previous state a sales tax of 3% or greater on this same vehicle, then you don't owe SD any tax.
The annual registration fees vary by vehicle type, size, weight, age. For my 8 SD vehicles 3 RV's, 3 trucks, 1 motorcycle and a Jeep; I pay approx. $770 for each years renewal. A few SD Counties have an additional "wheel tax" that's $4 or $5 per wheel per vehicle. That fee goes completely to the County, my county doesn't impose that extra but a few others do. You'll experience a significant reduction in your vehicle insurance rates when you leave Mass.
TX & FL are similar, but their vehicle tax is 6% or 6.25%
The one disadvantage to SD if you're under 65, is the limited options for private Medical Insurance, unless you're already covered by VA, Medicare or employer provided coverage.

MagillaGorilla wrote:
JRP, Here in Mass we have both sales tax and excise tax. Sales tax is 6.5% of the purchase price and due at the time you register it for the first time.

Excise tax is an on going tax that you get each and every year that you have a vehicle registered. it NEVER goes away. it is based on the book value of the vehicle so it goes down each year but it still $ucks.

I have 2 cars (sometimes 3) 1 motorhome and 5 motorcycles so my excise tax bills are about $1500 a year.

Then you add state inspection. That is $29 per vehicle. It aint cheap to live in Taxachusetts.
BarbaraOK
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
Like others have said, we use Escapees in Livingston, Tx as our mail forwarder and that is our legal, physical address.

We are both on Medicare (with a supplemental) and for years we still used our physicians in Tyler, Tx. This year we went ahead and started with new physicians in Mesa, AZ where we spend 5-6 months every winter. Medicare doesn't care and since they have so many fulltimers/snowbirds here for the winter, physicians are use to dealing with people only here 6 or so months each year. Medicare works well for traveling fulltimers - never have a question asked, just show cards and get treated.

As to the vehicle inspection in Texas - if you are out-of-state when you register, you just self-certify that you are out of state and have 3 days after returning to the state to get the vehicles inspected. I know people that only go back once every 12 years to get new DL with new photos. Otherwise, their vehicles never see Texas highways.

Barb
Dog_Folks
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
MagillaGorilla wrote:
JRP, Here in Mass we have both sales tax and excise tax. Sales tax is 6.5% of the purchase price and due at the time you register it for the first time.

Excise tax is an on going tax that you get each and every year that you have a vehicle registered. it NEVER goes away. it is based on the book value of the vehicle so it goes down each year but it still $ucks.

I have 2 cars (sometimes 3) 1 motorhome and 5 motorcycles so my excise tax bills are about $1500 a year.

Then you add state inspection. That is $29 per vehicle. It aint cheap to live in Taxachusetts.

Grew up there.

Glad I got out.

That state will tax gossiping.

They don't call it Taxachusetts for nothing!!
sdianel_-acct_c
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
Florida. We use our daughter's address. Drivers license and insurance no problem. Prior to using our daughter's address we used www.myrvmail.com in Crestview Florida. They provide you with an address that you can use for drivers licenses and insurance purposes. They will assist with the transition. They also have a premium service where they scan your mail and you can view it online and they will shred it for you after you view it. they will also forward your mail on your schedule and you can update the current forwarding address online.
No inspection.
No excise tax.
We have VA and Medicare. We come back to home base every 6 months for checkups and to get our meds prescriptions extended. We use CVS or Walgreens for meds and mail order for VA.
MagillaGorilla
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
JRP, Here in Mass we have both sales tax and excise tax. Sales tax is 6.5% of the purchase price and due at the time you register it for the first time.

Excise tax is an on going tax that you get each and every year that you have a vehicle registered. it NEVER goes away. it is based on the book value of the vehicle so it goes down each year but it still $ucks.

I have 2 cars (sometimes 3) 1 motorhome and 5 motorcycles so my excise tax bills are about $1500 a year.

Then you add state inspection. That is $29 per vehicle. It aint cheap to live in Taxachusetts.
jrp
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
Most, but not all, fulltimers select either SD, TX or FL as their new Domicile (home) state after severing all ties to their previous home state. There are a variety of reasons those 3 are the favorites, one of which is they make it easy & convenient to establish your new residency and they accept a mail forwarding address as your official address. SO for most of us, our DL, vehicle registration, voter registration, IRS, Social Security, insurance, banking, etc address is our mail forwarding address.
I'm based in SD and it does not require any inspections. In fact most of my 8 SD registered vehicles have never been in SD.
Whether they call it an excise tax or a sales tax, most all states apply some tax on new or transferred vehicles registered in their state. In SD its been a very low 3% for almost 20 yrs, but its going up to 4% April 1, 2015. in most other states its 6% or higher, except the couple who have no sales tax.

For medical care, most fulltimers schedule their annual routine checkups for an area they return to each year. Whether it was during the years I was on a private individual policy(with national PPO network) or now on Medicare, I've never had an issue with getting good medical care when & where needed in my travels.
jmtandem
Explorer II
Mar 24, 2015
What state do you register your RV in? How does that work as far as your drivers license and insurance are concerned?

Does your "home" state require a state inspection?

Does your home state require excise tax?

What do you do about a primary care physician?

How do you handle regular doctors check ups?

What do you list as your primary residence on your license?

You might check with the Technomadia webpages. They have a lot of information on this issue and break it down by states.
PawPaw_n_Gram
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
MagillaGorilla wrote:
What state do you register your RV in? How does that work as far as your drivers license and insurance are concerned?

What do you list as your primary residence on your license?

Texas - Escapee's - however we were Texas residents for over 20 years before that. For us it was simple as moving to a new home. We actually got a break on vehicle insurance from moving out of a high cost county (Collin) to a low cost county (Polk).

You have to have a 'legal residence' and your driver's license, insurance, vehicle registration, voting registration - all need to be the same address.

Read the Escapee's document on how to setup Texas residency. It is a good guide to the process even if you choose to establish your legal residence somewhere else.

MagillaGorilla wrote:
Does your "home" state require a state inspection?

Always has. No big deal. No change in policy/ practice for us.

MagillaGorilla wrote:
Does your home state require excise tax?

Texas charges a sales tax on purchase of a vehicle / RV / trailer. There is a cost of between $55 and $75 per year of license tag renewal.

If we purchase a new vehicle or RV out of state we will have to pay the Texas sales tax to register that vehicle in Texas (and can almost always get a break on the purchase state sales tax to offset the cost). This is pretty much standard anywhere in any state.

There is not a yearly property or excise tax in Texas.

MagillaGorilla wrote:
What do you do about a primary care physician?

How do you handle regular doctors check ups?

Most people we meet on the road keep the same doctors they had before taking off in their RV. Most doctors will work with you to plan a yearly or semi-annual visit, and write long term prescriptions.

However, it is essential that you sit down with your doctor and discuss the impact of long term travel and your individual health conditions.

We will be going 11 months between visits this year. My wife's eye surgeon/ doctor and my endocrinologist have both contacted doctors in the location where we will be hosting this summer - and arranged for us to make a six month visit with them, and forward the results to our regular doctors.

We've met some folks who have left their old home states behind, and setup up residence in different states. Most establish as winter location in the southern parts of the country.

No trouble finding a new primary care physician. Those locations have plenty of seniors who move to those areas and need new doctors. The full-time RVers are just part of the crowd.
amandasgramma
Explorer
Mar 24, 2015
We have a friend letting us "rent" from him.....we're renting a bedroom. He gets our mail, tosses junk mail and forwards when we tell him. That covers our insurances and driver's licenses. Our "renters" insurance covers the cost of anything we have in storage or in our rig. Our car insurance and RV insurance cover the truck and rig.

Oregon doesn't have an excise tax that I know of and no inspections.

We have kept our "family doctor". We go to Oregon once a year (well, we WILL...we've been on the road for 6 months)....and will have appointments for everything. We will get a year's worth of prescriptions written up. If we get ill on the road, then urgent care clinics and hospital ERs. We carry our medical report written up by our doctor.

Eventually, we're going to be going to South Dakota for residency and mail forwarding.