Washington State Taxes

[Microship]

Hi...

I'm closing on the purchase of my Amazon 44 this coming Monday, and had pretty much resigned myself to paying the Washington State sales tax (I'm not willing to charter or pretend to do so, and even though the current owner is an LLC, we have already determined that there is no reasonable and legal way to get around it even though there's a business model for the project).

So anyway. Everybody here already knows my pain, but it gets worse.

The boat is home-ported and moored in Anacortes, the seller lives in Anacortes, the closing is in Anacortes, and I'm taking delivery in Anacortes... which is in Skagit County. My new mooring is also in Skagit County. But the brokerage (Swiftsure) is in Seattle. I've never even been to their office. But here on the eve of closing I've just been told that Washington State charges tax based on the "store location" in Seattle, not any actual reality! That's 8.9% I get to pay instead of 8% - a difference of well over $2,000. I could buy a nice chartplotter for that.

This is seriously broken. I'm buying a boat from a guy in Anacortes, not an office in Seattle that is actually just providing a service.

Moral of the story: if you must use a broker, choose one that has an office in a county with the most favorable tax rate... though it's not clear what would happen if the location of the seller's broker and buyer's broker were different (I suspect it's defined by the seller's broker, or the "store").

Steve