Grew up with heavy equipment,drove off-road before i had a license. Started driving in the early 70's as private carrier in business's that i had.(car lots/building materials). Always liked it,still drove when i had 13 trucks. Pretty much quit driving 10 years ago.

 

My state exempts class 8 vehicles from sales tax. If you have a MC# you don't have to pay the sales tax. There are other states that also exempt them. I don't think anyone exempts FET on class 8 equipment.

 

South Carolina has a cap set a $300.00 on all vehicle sales used or new so I guess it would be a good state to buy a new truck in but we also have a property tax on vehicles so it wouldn't be so good to register here. I don't know if it's a sliding scale but it's very low after the vehicle passes it's tenth birthday. My tag(SC) runs about $1000.00 per year for about 30 states.

 

Tennessee has an annual property tax for corporations, but not for individuals.

 

So does MD and it absolutely tees me off (300.00). Md also is a state with no sales tax on a commercial vehicle. Probably not for long though. :roll:

 

Ok, different birds on this board. Sometimes I think everyone is a one truck O/O, or a maybe O/O wannabe, and then of course there are a few with several trucks.

So, you're a rich guy, right? Can't have too many of them around!

 

It ticks me off too, Rosty. Corporations must pay a minimum $100/year tax in my state. Tennessee bases it off of your property and a couple of other factors such as net earnings. It should not make any difference what our earnings are nor should it matter what the corporation owns. Some of these taxes are the reason I get my ire up when I hear people say that corporations don't pay any taxes. :angryblue:

 

RostyC, Have the dealer work up the numbers and you get a monthly insurance rate for the new truck. Lets use $2600 per month as the payment and insurance. Your operating costs wont change much and your freight rates will definitely not rise because you have a new truck. Now keep running your old truck and save/hold back $2600 per month into your "maintenance account" for 6 months and see what you have saved, do this for another 6 months. I dont think you will want the new truck at that point and you will probably have enough to buy a good second truck while the 359 is being restored to show truck quality. Good Luck.

 

Rosty....are you doin the trucking thing 100% these days?

 

Yep! That's about what I'm thinking as well. I think I fell into a bit of a trap in my own mind when I got nailed with the oil pan, two front rims, and a power steering box in about a two month span and then I started thinking what a mountain I might have in front of me to climb with this truck. However every mechanic that's touched this truck says it's been well taken care of and it's a solid truck. I do want to keep the 359 and make it show truck as does my wife, she said if I sell it she'll divorce me.

I recognize also that I goofed a little with the power steering box and this is part of the "learning curve". I didn't realize it would take a week to get one in or I would have ordered one a couple weeks ago. Lesson learned.

It's funny, even my mechanic gave me hell yesterday for test driving a new one.