Changing US Boat to Foreign Reg, Then Cruising US

[Divertitch]

Just bought a yacht in Ft Lauderdale and I have not paid FL tax. I have 90 days to leave FL and I can not return for 183 days If after 90 days I wish to stay for another 90 days I am told a new law allows me for $500 to stay for 90 more days but thats it. Now I have that permit do I have to get the Home land dudes $27 one year permit. The guy I got the boat off was here for 4 years with out a thing not even insurance or registration from any country.

[s/v Jedi]

Diver: yes we had those stickers... they are still on the boat... but that is a sales tax issue.

cheers,
Nick.

[IceMan]

Drivertitch,
I too have my boat up on the hard to perform maintenance and not pay FL tax. I was told by the title agency and the sales agency that once back in the water that I had 20 days to leave FL waters and that all I had to do was to get a receipt for fuel or maintenance from another state, then would be allowed back in. Did you register your boat in another state? I'm sure that is the reason I was told what I was told. I registered my boat in another state.

Jedi,
Checked with Fish and Game and a couple of guide friends and there is no such animal as an "Alaskan protection against wildlife" hunting permit. There is talk about some sort of "wildlife viewing habitat" or some such non-sense which I'm sure it is to drum up more money. Maybe that is what you are thinking about. Also, Alaska is the most liberal for having firearms in the United States, except maybe Arizona, no we are more liberal. But here is how to bring a gun into the U.S. Legally.

To import a gun, you can download a copy of AFT Form 6, fill it out and send it to AFT for approval. Provided there is no importation restriction for that firearm, they will approve it and send the form to you. You then take the Form 6 to an FFL and he handles getting the gun and then transfers the gun for you.

I'm not sure if that includes people coming to Alaska from other countries to hunt. I've never heard of anyone going through that much trouble to hunt here from another country.
Warren

[GMac]

So how does 'The Man' know or find out you are paying taxes or not in a specific State? Surely sailing from one State to another isn't like going from one country to another i.e. no border/Customs patrol so I would have though no paper trail for someone in a windowless office to track.

Does 'The Man' just wonder around randomly checking Rego numbers or similar?

Sales Agency is a boat seller/broker outfit?
Title Agency. What's that?

Just reading the threads here over the years and it appears each State seems to operate and tax in quite different ways. Aussie is a bit like that as well. I think I'm glad we aren't big enough to more than one bunch of Wallys who are screwing us

Kiwi to US translation - Wallys - a very nice way to say 'complete raving thieving {expletive deleted} idiots'

[Steve Pope]

Wallys are one level above wankers in Newzild speek, Every time I read "the coastal passage" and the letters / articles re the hastles that foreign boats especially and Aussie boats in general have to cope with in queensland makes me think it is a good place to avoid.

[bobsadler]

i purchased my boat in the u.s. and re-flagged from uscg to u.k. reg. i was told by customs (wilmington, n.c.) that i didn't need a cruising permit as the boat hadn't been imported.

as far as i can tell the cruising permit is not so much a "permit to cruise" as a way of keeping track of boats that are potentially dutiable

when we left the u.s. last year we cleared out in wilmington with no questions being raised

[s/v Jedi]

Iceman: see my post no. 15 in this thread. It has the link to the fish and game website so you were being misinformed. Click on the link for all the details (it's called different but the explanation is there). The thing is that one gets that Alaskan permit even if you have no plan to visit Alaska. The only reason to do it is that you must have a permit and the Alaskan $20.- one is the cheapest in the US. It doesn't matter where you enter.

Bobsadler: visiting yachts must have the cruising permit. It's a federal document and overrules any local attempts to collect duties, tax or whatever, for a period of 1 year. It's also valid for multiple entries when withing that calendar year.

cheers,
Nick.

[tackdriver]

Just to tie off this thread, I got the real answer from Customs and Border Protection about the issues that are in the Noonsite post. The post is somewhat correct. If you have a foreign boat that is not nationally registered, then you can't get a cruising permit. You can get a Permit to Proceed, but you can only get one, typically to leave US waters, and you have to report in if you make a stop in the US on your way to wherever you are going (according to the permit). I think the issue reported on Noonsite was to do with Canadians bringing boats with local state registration in Canada to the US. These would be regarded as 'unregistered' and not eligible for a cruising permit.
When I picked up my boat, I'd de-registered with USCG and was mid reregestering with Australia. In that condition I had to get a Permit to Proceed to NY, while my Aus Reg came through. In reality no one checked it anywhere and we stopped all over the place. The cruising permit was then issued in NY when the paperwork turned up, this process was free and painless.
cheers
James

[s/v Jedi]

James,

You are correct. I forgot about that period of having no registration at all. We used an agent who, 48 hours after de-registering and "exporting" the boat, came back with our new BVI registration AND the cruising permit. Can't understand how they could do it so fast but we had all the papers before we even left the dock.

Also, we had 90 days to leave the state of FL and got two nice stickers on the windows reminding everyone of that. Nobody checked those either.

cheers,
Nick.

[Dick Pluta]

Originally Posted by GMac

So how does 'The Man' know or find out you are paying taxes or not in a specific State? Surely sailing from one State to another isn't like going from one country to another i.e. no border/Customs patrol so I would have though no paper trail for someone in a windowless office to track.

Does 'The Man' just wonder around randomly checking Rego numbers or similar?

Indeed, he does just that, but not randomly. It's very organized. I have a friend who got a tax bill from a state that he didn't live in because his boat was in a marina for too long. They photographed the boats in each marina on a regular basis and compared the photos over time. His showed up in the photos too often and they sent him a bill. Your tax dollars at work.

BTW, I spent a week in a marina a couple of months ago and saw a guy with some kind of box standing by slip after slip. I thought he was from the marina and asked him what he was doing. He told me he was from the census and was logging the lat-lon of each slip as an address for the Census. Big Brother is alive and well in the US.

Dick PLuta
AEGEA