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Series II tax value; NC

bulldurham

bulldurham

Platinum Level Sponsor
Just got the tax bill on my Series II Tuesday.
$34,500...
A trip to the tax office w/ supporting data did no good as they produced an NADA printout showing $34,500 as the "high' retail.
This value is for the 1961 Sunbeam Alpine II, Sport Roadster. Is that name commonly used to describe the Alpine. I am aware of the ST and GT, Tiger and Harrington's. Does NADA use generic terms to identify specific models?
I invited the Tax Supervisor to do a little research on his own to see what the market is actually doing since NADA, whose data is supposed to reflect the market, obviously is pulling data from Tiger or perhaps Harrington sales.
Anyone else have this hit home yet?
My only recourse is to present receipts showing cost of restoration which is still more than the market will bear for my "modified" car. Low retail is $15,000 and average is $19,200.
Is vintage tags w/ strict control of mileage a solution?
 
RootesRooter

RootesRooter

Donation Time
I have little faith in value guides when it comes to Sunbeams. These days they're almost always 30%-50% too high. Aside from Alpines with factory race history, and maybe a Harrington or two, can anyone here verify a sale at or above the supposed NADA #1 price of $34,500K? How about 30K? 25K? Before the economy tanked, I think 22K is roughly the highest price I read of any Series Alpine going for in the U.S.
 
Ken Ellis

Ken Ellis

Donation Time
I'm sure your car is nice, but that's nuts.

My suggested response to them is: "Sold! Thanks for your offer."
 
R

RootesRacer

Donation Time
I had a similar issue when I licensed my alpine in CO.

The DMV had a valuation for the alpine of something like $28k, and of course the license fee is proportional to the value.
I contested the valuation figure then and there and they brought me a manager of sorts, who brought over KBB, which had a ridiculous value too.
They then brought over some older books and somewhere along in time the value for Tigers and Alpines merged.

We ended up at a much lower figure and I was able to make it out of the DMV after paying something like $150 for a 5 year historic vehicle license.

It pays to be difficult sometimes.
 
RootesRooter

RootesRooter

Donation Time
How much excise tax does that $34,500 "FMV" translate to in NC? We're lucky here in Washington state. They stick to the original MSRP.

Looking at NADA's website, they talk about "High/Average/Low Retail Value," stating that "trade-in values would be lower." Is it possible they're only using the sales prices of Alpines reported by commercial car lots, which account for what, maybe 1% at most of all Alpine sales in any one year? That formula might be valid for a 3-year-old Chevy, but not for older classics.
 
RootesRooter

RootesRooter

Donation Time
Oops! NADA=National Automobile Dealers Association. Guess that verifies my suspicion about where they get their info from.
 
bulldurham

bulldurham

Platinum Level Sponsor
I suggested to the tax office that $6000. to $12,000 was a reasonable range for a car that could be a daily driver, a mistake, as NADA highly values a daily driver.
My only recourse is to take a picture and receipts for restoration, to them , which I think will be the kiss of death; so , they will get the pictures of the before resto and then maybe I will get the low retail valuation.
$34,500 translates to just under $500.00 in NC, or my particular county. This is a combo of both city and county taxes. Don't ask why both@#$%^&.
I am going to educate the tax office about the difference in these cars because it may carry over to others who have drivable vintage cars that NADA/KBB are doing incorrectly.
 
65beam

65beam

Donation Time
tax value

move to ohio. no inspections, no taxes, 37.50 per year in this county for tags for our regular cars. the alpines and harringtons have historical tags that are good for 50 years now. the 69 GT has the license plates that were on the series 4 back in 1969. they don't expire until 2058. you don't have to prove how many miles you drive since you don't renew every year. all you have to pay is insurance. no taxes!
 
M

mferris

Donation Time
Doug - my SV was registered in NC with a tax value (a figure that the state came up with) of $3000.00.

Granted, I'm still fighting with the state to get my title issued because of missing VINs (for which they have given me new numbers) - but that's another story - it's only taken 6 months of repeated trips to Tag office, Office of Theft and Licensing, and my insurance company for Title Bonds. Whee!

-M
 
Ken Ellis

Ken Ellis

Donation Time
Although they will likely balk at being educated, it's obviously worth doing. Do you have the documentation regarding your actual purchase price? And perhaps previous titles or valuation/taxes paid on your very vehicle? Like others have mentioned, it looks like their sample size is one or two vehicles, and not in NC.

Before you send them to this website to support your case, you may want to do some judicious post editing. Say the word and this paragraph will disappear, too.

Perhaps a sale/lease-back arrangement would help!

As folks have mentioned, Ohio is pretty good in this regard. Although the concept of taxing non-retail auto purchases (at each purchase in its history, no less) galls me at each occurrence, it does beat this alternative.
 
bulldurham

bulldurham

Platinum Level Sponsor
NC has sale taxes on each privately sold vehicle, which is about 3% of the value "they" assign the car, at the time of registration. My original purchase was $75.00 in 1980 so I don't think they will be impressed other than thinking I got a good deal. The tax office has all the history of previously paid taxes. It was only after the car was more recently insured and tagged that the valuation started increasing.
I think NADA and KBB should have to provide actual sales data to back up their claims of value; it would seem the best data for values would be E bay final sales prices as that is where numerous sales take place. Auctions tend to be very high or no sale and the usual used car lot never or rarely has an Alpine for sale. In fact I have never seen one on a used car lot in NC
Ohio sounds like a real bargin, comparatively.

Mike, register your car in Wake if you can; maybe they will be more reasonable.

As for the P1800, I think I will do some research before going any further because I know their values tend to be higher than Alpines if they are decent drivers. Parts, used and new are about 2x Alpine equivalents.

Ken, I may request this post be deleted if I reference to SAOCA . But they were clearly not impressed that I have had Alpines and a Tiger over the years.
These folks did not know Carrol Shelby or anything about him.



QUOTE=Ken Ellis;123693]Although they will likely balk at being educated, it's obviously worth doing. Do you have the documentation regarding your actual purchase price? And perhaps previous titles or valuation/taxes paid on your very vehicle? Like others have mentioned, it looks like their sample size is one or two vehicles, and not in NC.

Before you send them to this website to support your case, you may want to do some judicious post editing. Say the word and this paragraph will disappear, too.

Perhaps a sale/lease-back arrangement would help!

As folks have mentioned, Ohio is pretty good in this regard. Although the concept of taxing non-retail auto purchases (at each purchase in its history, no less) galls me at each occurrence, it does beat this alternative.[/QUOTE]
 
Ken Ellis

Ken Ellis

Donation Time
Just a note -- you, personally and without fanfare, can go back and edit your own post even after months (possibly years). This doesn't take anyone's approval or permission.

You can just drop me a note and I'll edit mine.

You should know that there are archive organizations that take 'snapshots' of the web all the time, and store it for historical purposes. (Archive.org, for example.) The edits you make here will have no effect on what's stored there. But the likelihood of the DMV digging back that far are pretty slim.

Now I'll have to edit this post, too!

Good luck!
 
bulldurham

bulldurham

Platinum Level Sponsor
In case anyone wants to take a look I found a site,Collector Car. com, market review, that has current values for the Alpine ,Tiger and Lemans; all years, along w/ condition guidelines.
Looks a lot different than NADA.
 
RootesRooter

RootesRooter

Donation Time
Did you mean: http://www.collectorcarmarket.com/ ?

Interesting. I'd say their values are consistently 20% LOW on Alpines. The #1 value on any Series car is only $14,600 (Ser V). Tigers max out at $39K+. But a #1 Harrington LeMans is worth $43K.


bulldurham said:
In case anyone wants to take a look I found a site,Collector Car. com, market review, that has current values for the Alpine ,Tiger and Lemans; all years, along w/ condition guidelines.
Looks a lot different than NADA.
Click to expand...
 
65beam

65beam

Donation Time
tax value

dick,
hagerty won't disagree on the value of a lemans. after all there were only 250 built which is a hand full compared to the tiger production. it seems that various reasons tend to keep alpine values down. isn't that what started this discussion?
 
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