Couple from UK buying their first RV!
Hi Everyone Not sure where to start. I have so many questions. Here’s our story. We currently live in the UK. Starting in early 2014, we want to buy an RV and spend part of each year (3-6 months)...
Forum Discussion
You don't need an International Driver's License, which serves only to translate license information from one language to another. UK licenses are OK in the US and Canada.
You can create a legal entity to own, register, insure a motor vehicle for your use. There are law offices in Montana that do this for residents of other states trying to avoid sales tax on the purchase, or high annual taxes, usually property taxes, as owners. This does not mean Montana is the cheapest place to register, e.g. the annual corporation fee, and legal services fee, for the Montana ploy is several times my annual registration fee in Oklahoma ($45 this year).
Other states are recommended based on popularity with full timers for ease of establishing and maintaining domicile without physical presence (which you do not intend to do) and in most cases because they have no state income tax, which is irrelevant to a visitor not subject to the tax. So your choice of a state should be based on what is a convenient base for your visits, for storage of the RV between visits, and has reasonable taxes, fees, insurance costs, and storage costs. You are neither a resident full time RVer, nor resident of a high sales tax state looking for a shelter.
Almost any of the states will have the legal mechanism you need. Your greatest annual costs, other than depreciation and coost of money, will be storage and insurance, which tend to track land values and population density, followed by taxes and fees should you choose one of the few states that have high taxes and fees on motor vehicles. In most states, these will be less than one or two hundred dollars a year, versus thousands on insurance where that is high cost, and upwards of hundreds per month for storage in a major metro area.
I see a lot of advice about how to establish residence in a particular state. Make sure you understand the legal and tax implications of being a U.S. resident, or documenting yourself as a resident when your immigration status is non-resident.
You can create a legal entity to own, register, insure a motor vehicle for your use. There are law offices in Montana that do this for residents of other states trying to avoid sales tax on the purchase, or high annual taxes, usually property taxes, as owners. This does not mean Montana is the cheapest place to register, e.g. the annual corporation fee, and legal services fee, for the Montana ploy is several times my annual registration fee in Oklahoma ($45 this year).
Other states are recommended based on popularity with full timers for ease of establishing and maintaining domicile without physical presence (which you do not intend to do) and in most cases because they have no state income tax, which is irrelevant to a visitor not subject to the tax. So your choice of a state should be based on what is a convenient base for your visits, for storage of the RV between visits, and has reasonable taxes, fees, insurance costs, and storage costs. You are neither a resident full time RVer, nor resident of a high sales tax state looking for a shelter.
Almost any of the states will have the legal mechanism you need. Your greatest annual costs, other than depreciation and coost of money, will be storage and insurance, which tend to track land values and population density, followed by taxes and fees should you choose one of the few states that have high taxes and fees on motor vehicles. In most states, these will be less than one or two hundred dollars a year, versus thousands on insurance where that is high cost, and upwards of hundreds per month for storage in a major metro area.
I see a lot of advice about how to establish residence in a particular state. Make sure you understand the legal and tax implications of being a U.S. resident, or documenting yourself as a resident when your immigration status is non-resident.
