States Are Taxing RV Owners on Prices They Never Paid

Mike Wendler (0:02): Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the RV lifestyle podcast Monday news edition. I'm Mike Wendler. Before I spent the last fifteen plus years on the road with Jennifer in our RV, I spent more than thirty years as a journalist covering presidents, wars, the pope, consumer affairs, corruption, breaking news all around the world.

Mike Wendler (0:20): 18 Emmy Awards later, I walked away from the newsroom to an RV and never looked back, but I did bring one thing with me, the discipline of sourcing everything I report. That's what this show is. Not rumors, not social media chatter, not sponsored talking points. Real news verified with every source linked in the show notes at rvpodcast.com so you can read the original reporting yourself. That's the promise I make to you every single Monday.

Mike Wendler (0:47): We have five stories for you this week, but first, I need to tell you about something happening this Thursday, May 14 because it could save your next RV trip. Memorial Day is right around the corner, and it means rigs are coming out of storage. Systems are getting fired up for the first time in months, and a whole lot of RVers are hitting the road eager and excited, and that's exactly when things go wrong. Batteries that didn't survive the winter, water systems that suddenly leak, slides that hesitate, breakers that trip, stuff that worked fine last fall that now doesn't. Well, this Thursday, May 14, 7PM eastern, I'm hosting a live interactive workshop called RV problems on the road fixed fast.

Mike Wendler (1:31): It's built specifically for this very moment right before the holiday rush, right before the campgrounds fill up, right before you're standing beside your rig on the side of the road thinking, now what? We're going to walk you through what to look for, what to check, and what to do when something goes wrong so a small problem doesn't turn into a trip ending one. This is live interactive video, meaning you can ask questions right throughout the whole presentation. And if you can't make it live, you'll get access to a recording, plus everybody gets a downloadable checklist that you can use every single season. Spots are limited, so if you are already a member of rvcommunity.com, you know that this workshop is free for you.

Mike Wendler (2:12): Just show up. But if you're not a member yet, you can grab a spot for just $10. Register right now, rvlifestyle.com/workshop. That link is below. Rvlifestyle.com/workshop.

Mike Wendler (2:26): Alright. Let's get to the news. Story number one, the hidden RV tax trap that nobody warned you about. I mentioned I spent more than thirty years as a journalist covering stories that affect real people's wallets. I covered Wall Street scandals and government waste and corporate fine print designed to confuse consumers, but I wanna tell you now about something that's happening in the RV world that doesn't get enough attention.

Mike Wendler (2:52): It deserves a spotlight because RV buyers are getting blindsided by it every single year. It comes down to one word, MSRP. Now you probably already know that MSRP stands for manufacturer's suggested retail price. It's the number printed on the sales sticker, but it is not, in most cases, what you actually pay. Smart buyers negotiate.

Mike Wendler (3:16): Dealers offer discounts. On a $100,000 fifth wheel, for example, it's not unusual to walk out paying 70,000 or even 65,000. That $35,000 you saved, that's real money. That is years of campground fees. That's real breathing room in your retirement budget.

Mike Wendler (3:34): Now here's the gut punch. Several states charge you sales tax or annual ownership tax based on that original MSRP, not what you paid, not the price on your contract, the sticker price. Colorado is the most documented example. Colorado's specific ownership tax is assessed on the original taxable value, which is determined when the vehicle is new and doesn't change throughout the life of a vehicle. And what is that original taxable value?

Mike Wendler (4:07): It's always 85% of the vehicle's original MSRP regardless of age or current market value. This ownership tax hits you not just when you buy. It comes back every year at registration time with a progressively smaller portion of the MSRP collected each year. Hey. When you bought that thing, you negotiated hard.

Mike Wendler (4:28): You saved maybe $30,000 off the sticker. Colorado looks at that deal, shrugs, and taxes you on the sticker anyway. Real RV owners have dealt with this for years. Michigan, my Michigan, where I live, hits you from two directions. First, like several other states, Michigan taxes vehicle purchases before rebates or incentives are applied to the price.

Mike Wendler (4:53): You got a $5,000 manufacturer's rebate? You still pay 6% sales tax on the full pre rebate figure, but it's the annual registration fee where Michigan really stings RV owners. The foundation for calculating Michigan's annual registration fee is, you guessed it, the original manufacturer suggested retail price, which nobody pays. The MSRP is the determining factor, not the current resell value or the price you really did pay. And here's what makes it brutal.

Mike Wendler (5:24): Michigan uses the original sticker price regardless of whether you bought it used or at a discount, and fees stop decreasing after the fourth registration year. After year four, it freezes. You pay that MSRP derived fee for the life of the vehicle. Indiana has its own version. The state's annual excise tax uses MSRP to classify the vehicle into a fee tier.

Mike Wendler (5:50): And on the purchase price itself, Indiana taxes vehicle purchases before rebates or incentives are implied, meaning the buyer pays taxes on the vehicle as if it costs the full pre rebate price. Negotiate the dealer down, and Indiana credits you for that, but whatever the manufacturer offered you in rebates, the state says, that's a form of payments, not a price reduction and taxes it accordingly. Now states that do not have a general sales tax, such as Montana, Alaska, Delaware, Oregon, New Hampshire, do not impose those taxes on RV purchases. Zero, not a dime on the purchase. South Dakota leads the pack as well with zero RV sales tax, no income tax, no personal property tax.

Mike Wendler (6:38): So on a $100,000 RV purchase, that can mean saving up to $10,000 compared to high tax states. There is a workaround, something that most part time RV travelers don't know about, but every full timer does. If you live on the road full time and no longer have a permanent brick and mortar home, you have the legal right to choose your state of domicile, and South Dakota has specifically built its laws to accommodate exactly that lifestyle. South Dakota has created an exception clause specifically for nontraditional residents such as full time RVers, allowing domicile to be established with a mail forwarding address, a campground or a hotel receipt no more than a year old, and a visit to the DMZ. To remain a South Dakota resident, all you need to do is stay overnight in South Dakota at least once every five years.

Mike Wendler (7:29): That's it. No income tax, no excise tax, no annual vehicle inspections, no personal property tax in your rig. So if you see South Dakota place on a lot of RVs at campgrounds across the country, that's not a coincidence. Now there has been one slight change with South Dakota, and they did this last year. They changed its voter residency rules, and to vote in state and local elections, you now have to live in the state for at least thirty consecutive days.

Mike Wendler (7:56): But full time RVers who maintain only a mailing address, you're still eligible to vote in federal elections. It doesn't affect your domicile or your registration or your tax benefits, but know that if you're signing up. And then there is the Montana option, which has been talked about in RV circles for decades because Montana has no sales tax. And there, nonresidents can form an LLC, register a vehicle under it, and in theory, pay nothing in sales tax. Well, for years, this worked quietly.

Mike Wendler (8:28): It's not quiet anymore. California's DMV has launched investigations targeting vehicles with out of state plates primarily from Montana. Utah passed senate bill 52 to close the loophole, allowing state databases to be cross referenced to identify violators. Wyoming has pursued enforcement as well. California is not sending letters.

Mike Wendler (8:49): They're sending investigators. California charged 14 people in a tax evasion scheme tied to Montana vehicle registrations with charges including conspiracy, filing false sales tax returns, money laundering, perjury. There are cases in which California investigators showed up at individuals' homes with a search warrant. In Iowa, auditors raised alarms after noticing RVs with Montana plates at the State Fair and University of Iowa football games. Illinois has won a string of tax court rulings against residents purchasing RVs through Montana LLCs.

Mike Wendler (9:27): Georgia and California have deployed automatic license plate readers, toll tag correlation, and insurance database cross checks to identify vehicles registered to Montana entities but used in state. They're not guessing. They're using traffic cameras and databases to build cases. State officials warn that registering vehicles using Montana legitimate ties to Montana can carry serious risks, including back taxes, fines, even criminal charges. So listen.

Mike Wendler (9:59): The bottom line there is serious. If you legitimately live on the road and full time and make South Dakota or Montana your true legal domicile, including getting your driver's license there, registering to vote there, using a mail forwarding service as your permanent address, that is a legal and well established path that tens of thousands of RVers use, but if you own a home in California or Michigan or Colorado when you set up a Montana LLC just to dodge taxes on your RV, you're not using a loophole. You're committing tax evasion, and states have gotten very good at proving it. So before you sign anything at an RV dealership, you need to find out exactly how your state calculates RV taxes, ask if your state uses MSRP as the taxable basis, Ask if manufacturer rebates reduce your taxable price. Ask what the annual registration and ownership tax will look like because the number on your sales contract is not the only number that matters.

Mike Wendler (11:00): In some states, there's another number, the one you never negotiated. The sticker price you thought you left back in the dealer's lot will follow you at home and show up in your mailbox every single year. Jen and I have been on the road for fifteen years, nearly half a million miles, and we've seen every kind of RV deal, good and bad. This hidden tax bite on MSRP is one of the ones that hurts the hardest because nobody at the dealership is gonna volunteer that information. So know before you go, and don't hesitate to give your state legislators a piece of your mind about what you think about that MSRP taxing.

Mike Wendler (11:36): Stay skeptical. Alright. Again, sources, tax specific details I talked about, you can find that at rvpodcast.com in the show notes. Story number two, a no tax on RV loans bill is heading to congress, and this is some genuinely good news from Washington. Yeah.

Mike Wendler (11:55): I said good news in Washington, the same sentence. Last year's big tax law, that one big beautiful bill included a popular provision, and that was if you took out a loan on a car or a truck after 12/31/2024, you could deduct that loan interest on your federal taxes. Well, now a new bipartisan bill, h r eighty six seventy two, was introduced last week by representative Rudy Yakim, a Republican from Indiana, and representative Dina Titus, a Democrat from Nevada. Get that? A Democrat and a Republican, both introducing legislation that will actually do something?

Mike Wendler (12:31): Anyway, it would extend that same no tax on loan interest benefit to RVs, travel trailers, and campers. Representative Yacum represents Indiana's 2nd District. That's near Elkhart, the RV capital of America, so you can understand why he did it. Representative Titus, she's from Nevada, and Nevada wants more tourists and more camping registrations. So you see why she did too.

Mike Wendler (12:54): Now the core problem that this bill fixes is that when congress wrote the auto loan deduction into the tax code, travel trailers were inadvertently left out of the definition of applicable passenger vehicles. So motorhomes could qualify, but a travel trailer, which represents the vast majority of RVs sold in America, couldn't. The Recreation Vehicle Industry Association said that restoring travel trailers to that classification ensures tax benefits are applied fairly across the industry and says that it's a vital step in keeping RVing affordable. Now here is the important caveat. There's always one, isn't there?

Mike Wendler (13:32): What every RVer needs to hear. This is just a bill. It's been introduced. It still has to make its way through the house ways and means committee, then it has to pass a full house vote, then clear the Senate, and then be signed into law. That is not nothing.

Mike Wendler (13:47): It has bipartisan support, though. It has industry backing, and it makes clear logical sense, but there's no guarantee Washington is gonna agree with clear logical sense. If Washington wants to help working families afford a car, it ought to apply the same logic to that RV that millions of those same families used to see the country. We'll keep watching this one. Links to the bill, full coverage on the show notes for this at rvpodcast.com.

Mike Wendler (14:15): Story three, the feds are opening more federal land to hunting and trapping. Now from good news to a story that is gonna make some of you cheer and others scratch your head, I wanna give you the facts, let you decide where you land on it. The Trump administration is moving quickly to lift hunting and trapping restrictions across national parks, national recreation areas, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas. This is not a rumor. The New York Times and the Associated Press both obtained internal interior department documents that lay out the scope of what's being proposed, and it is significant.

Mike Wendler (14:51): Here's the background. Interior secretary Doug Burgham signed secretarial order thirty four forty seven back in January, which directs the agencies under his department to expand hunting and fishing access, remove what he called unnecessary barriers, and ensure consistent policy across all department managed lands. The new policy he put in place is blunt. Public and federally managed lands should be open to hunting and fishing unless a specific documented and legally supported exception applies. Now the changes are already filtering down to specific park units.

Mike Wendler (15:29): According to the AP, at least 55 sites in the Lower 48 states fall under the National Park Service's jurisdiction and are affected. Managers at some locations have already lifted local prohibitions, including bans on hunting stands that damage trees, bans on training hunting dogs, restrictions on using vehicles to retrieve animals, and restrictions on hunting along trails. Some of the specific examples reported are going to raise eyebrows. At Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, the hunting season would be extended through spring and summer. At Lake Meredith National Recreation Area in Texas, hunters would be allowed to clean kills in park restrooms.

Mike Wendler (16:13): And at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park And Preserve in Louisiana, alligator hunting would be permitted. Now I wanna be careful here because this story is more nuanced than the headlines suggest. This isn't about making every national park huntable. It's about local restrictions inside parks, recreation areas, preserves, and other National Park Service units where hunting already exists, and whether park superintendents can keep local rules that they put in place for safety or sanitation or resource protection. The other side of this is also worth hearing.

Mike Wendler (16:48): Hunting has been declining for years. Right now, only about 4.2% of Americans 16 and older identified as hunters in 2024, which means state wildlife agencies are losing revenue from license sales and excise taxes on guns and ammunition. Bergam's argument is that expanding access supports conservation, rural economies, and public health. Here's why this matters to every single one of you who camp on federal land. Whether you're a weekend warrior at a national recreation area, a dispersed camper on BLM land, or somebody who parks the rig for a week in a national forest.

Mike Wendler (17:26): For park managers and other visitors, the order raises real questions about how much local authority will remain when safety, sanitation, and resource concerns are specific to one place. When you're camping in the backcountry or at a dispersed site and the local rules that used to govern who could hunt where and how are being stripped away, that changes the experience and potentially the safety calculation for everybody sharing that ground. This one, this one's gonna play out over months, you'll be hearing a lot about it. Hey, quick break before we get to our next story. Jennifer and I, as I say, have spent fifteen years figuring out how to plan better RV trips and track our spending on the road.

Mike Wendler (18:09): It's been a long education, but we like to remember the places and the moments we never wanna forget. And a while back, we decided we couldn't find anything in terms of an app that would do this, so we developed our own. And for a while, we just kept that all to ourselves, and then we decided, let's make this available to everybody. Let's build the tools that any RVer can use. So we have a place now, rvlifestyle.com/apps.

Mike Wendler (18:37): You can find the apps that we did. A full suite of web based tools that we designed for exactly how RVers actually live. We have a awesome trip planning dashboard that searches campgrounds. It keeps track of every detail of your route. You can enter as many of your different trips as you want in there, all sorts of stuff.

Mike Wendler (18:57): We have a separate budgeting tool so you can actually know what your trip is costing you. We have a trip journal that captures the stories before they fade like a diary on the road and lots more. There's no App Store downloads necessary. This will work on your phone, your tablet, your laptop. Very easy to use, whatever you have in front of you right now.

Mike Wendler (19:18): These are apps built by us, real RVers, for people like you, real RVers. Go to rvlifestyle.com/apps, and you'll see for yourself. Go see what we made for you. Rvlifestyle.com/apps. Story four, Winnebago goes overlanding, but it will cost you Let's talk about something that's a little different.

Mike Wendler (19:41): If you've ever been paying attention to the RV industry over the past few years, you know that the overlanding and backcountry adventure niche has been growing fast. I'm talking about hardcore, go anywhere rigs built for people who wanna leave the pavement behind entirely, not just pull into a campground with full hookups. It's been a smaller niche market dominated by boutique builders. Well, Winnebago just walked into that room. This past week, Winnebago publicly unveiled the Arca, an overland adventure truck designed to go further, they say, and stay out longer.

Mike Wendler (20:18): It is the largest offering in the company's newly christened backcountry adventure portfolio, which includes the popular class b Revel van and the class c Echo. Winnebago first showed this rig to a crowd back in April, and it was officially released last week. The Arca is huge. It's on a Ram 5,504 by four chassis. It's got a 6.7 liter engine.

Mike Wendler (20:44): It measures 26 feet seven inches long. Gross vehicle weight rating of 19,500 pounds. It has a 15,000 pound trailer hitch rating. Sleeps four, seats six in the cab, designed to operate in temperatures from 10 below zero to a 120 degrees Fahrenheit. And they say you can do fourteen days of off grid capacity with their power system.

Mike Wendler (21:09): This thing is a beast. But what you wanna know now is the number. How much does it cost? Hold on to your chairs. It's just $331,901.

Mike Wendler (21:23): Yes. You heard that right. Just under $332,000. Now look. I I'm not gonna tell you whether that's worth it or not.

Mike Wendler (21:31): That's a personal decision, but I will tell you what it means for the industry. This puts Winnebago, the biggest name in American RV manufacturing, squarely in competition with boutique overlanding builders like Earth Roamer and Global Expedition Vehicles, rigs that have historically cost this much or more and come from very tiny custom shops. The question now is whether buyers in this space will trust the Winnebago name and the factory built approach or stick with the smaller more established players who got there first. The overlanding segment keeps growing, and now Winnebago has planted its flag. Story five, bear attacks.

Mike Wendler (22:13): This is not a drill. I wanna close this week's news with something very serious. We have talked many times on this show about bear safety, and we've urged you to carry bear spray, make noise on the trail, never hike alone in grizzly country. And this week, I need you to hear why that is not just advice. It is life and death.

Mike Wendler (22:34): A 33 year old Florida man named Anthony Pollo was killed last week in Glacier National Park, the first fatal bear attack in the park in years. His remains were found Wednesday about two and a half miles, up the Mount Brown Trail on the park's west side, roughly 50 feet off the path in a very densely wooded area. Last heard from Sunday evening, he sent a text message saying he was hiking towards the Mount Brown Fire Lookout. He was hiking alone. Just days before that, on May 4, two hikers in Yellowstone National Park were seriously injured in a separate bear attack northwest of the Old Faithful area there.

Mike Wendler (23:14): Those were two male hikers aged 15 and 28, both airlifted by helicopter to a hospital. Park officials believe that attack involved a female grizzly with two or three cubs. Two national parks, one week, one fatality, two serious injuries, all by bears. The Mount Brown Trail runs through very dense vegetation, has blind corners, and those are conditions where a hiker and a bear can come face to face with almost no warning for either. Evening hours, like when polio was on that trail, are periods of higher bear activity.

Mike Wendler (23:49): Here's what we know works. Bear spray deployed before a charging bear closes within 30 to 60 feet. It's almost always more effective at stopping attacks. The experts all agree on this, more effective than firearms and close range surprise encounters. Making noise on the trail, talking, clapping, bear bells reduces the chance of a surprise encounter.

Mike Wendler (24:13): Hiking in groups significantly safer than hiking alone, and try to avoid dawn, dusk, and after dark in high activity areas. We're heading into peak national park season. Jen and I have hiked in grizzly country many times over the years, and we always carry bear spray, always make noise, and we don't hike alone in that terrain. So please do the same. Our thoughts are with Anthony Pollio's family.

Mike Wendler (24:39): Well, that's your RV lifestyle podcast Monday news edition for this week. Five stories, all sourced, all verified. You can check the links. That's how we do it here. Every link, every original report, every source behind every story you heard waiting for you in the show notes at rvpodcast.com.

Mike Wendler (24:55): Go now. And before you go, though, hold it. Come on back here a minute because I wanna tell you about Thursday one more time. Memorial Day weekend is coming fast. Your rig may have been sitting since its fall, and the honest truth, as I said, is that's when problems are most likely to show up.

Mike Wendler (25:10): You didn't even know things were wrong. Well, this Thursday, May 14 at 7PM eastern, I'm hosting a live workshop, RV problems on the road fixed fast, built specifically to get you ready before the holiday rush hits. We're talking batteries, water systems, slides, electrical, the stuff that breaks when you least expect it and least want to deal with it. Live video, live questions, downloadable checklist that you can use for years. If you're already a member of the rvcommunity.com, you know it's free.

Mike Wendler (25:38): Just show up. But if you're not a member of RV Community yet, just $10 will get you through the door. So don't wait on this one. Spots are limited. The holiday weekend is not.

Mike Wendler (25:49): Register for this workshop at rvlifestyle.com/workshop. That link again, rvlifestyle.com/workshop. We'd love to see you Thursday night. Hey. We'll be back with another edition of the podcast on Wednesday, though.

Mike Wendler (26:02): Jennifer will join me for Stories from the Road where we answer questions and offer trip suggestions, talk about what this lifestyle is really about, places and the people and the moments, remind you why you bought that rig in the first place. We'd love to have you with us for that one too. Until then, safe travels and happy trails. Hi.