Documenting a new vessel in the US

[hezi973]

Hello US sailors. I am looking for a little advice here. I am in contract to purchase a new sailing catamaran and planning to bring it to the US. In the US, I am going to wrap my land life and go sailing with my wife and daughter. I am not sure how long I will stay in the US, but I don't foresee it'll take too long.

On a prior vessel I had, I documented it under a DE LLC. I registered the dinghy in DE and that was it. DE has a $300 LLC annual tax and you need to pay a registered agent another $100/yr for address and mail forwarding. DE changed their policies and are not allowing dinghy registration unless one can prove the tender is using DE waters.

I don't want to pay a state sale tax on a vessel that is intending on cruising the world! I started digging and found the following:
AZ, NM, MO, OH, and SC LLC formation cost anywhere from $110 to $50. There are no annual corporation fees and no need to report anything. Much better than the DE corporation $400 annual expense but I will need to pay tax on the dinghy unless I will go the route of TT (tender to).

Now, MO, SC, and OH have annual property tax on anything you own (cars, boats, etc.). I will have to pay annual tax on the dinghy since it is a taxable property owned by an LLC in the state. The Catamaran will be documented so they will not even know about it. Yet, if they find out, now they can claim sale and property taxes not to mention back taxes if they find later on.

Exploring states that has no sale tax we get: DE, MT, NH and USVI. So now I need to deal with annual filing fees and reporting but that's it.

Alternatively, I herd of a person that open an LLC holding company in his state of NJ, documented the vessel under the NJ LLC (so no DMV involved), and went the TT route for the dinghy. As a hailing port he put ST Thomas USVI (since the boat spent some time there. He since sold the boat and never had any issue.

Very confusing matter... I would love to hear your opinion in this matter. I am not looking to invade, just to avoid paying unnecessary taxes. What did you do?