Frank, it’s different in different states and I don’t know any other than California. Actually every time I read another article on Ca. boat taxes I’m not even sure about that. For what it’s worth here’s how it works here. In Ca. you are not libel until you are here a year, paying the taxes as per the county you’re in. It’s usually enforced by the marina, which gives the county a list of the boats, usually on Jan 1st. The county then sends you a bill. The kicker is that a lot of the counties have tax days other than Jan 1st and some walk the docks to double check during the year. In So. Ca. they really play the game and will many times not accept any documentation that the boat wasn’t there, giving you the run around as the penalties rack up. Hiring an attorney is not unheard of. (Frequently written about in Latitude 38) A friend of mine fought them for months and won his battle by showing copies of his log book.
Here in San Joaquin Co. they are much more reasonable and will accept reasonable documentation of the boat being in Mexico. But not all is bad. A friend of ours on WS 32 Windsong, now Komani, arranged with the harbor master to leave the end of Dec., returning the 1st of Jan. keeping him off the tax rolls. We left San Mateo County late one year. Fearing we’d get on two tax rolls we made a call and she said no problem she’ll change us to transient. She didn’t have to be so nice.
One final tax story. When we got back from Mexico we received a notice from the county wanting to know the valuation. I didn’t respond because I thought they should be able look us up in the computer. Awhile later they sent us a terse statement saying that because we didn’t respond they would value the boat at $25,000. We were elated! That made our tax less than half of what we were paying them before.
Jim