[twobjshelbys]

Do your taxes go down over time (as the car depreciates)? If so, is it a fixed depreciation schedule? In most of the states I've lived in (including Taxachusetts) the tax portion of the annual registration would go down to a minimum. However, some states assess the tax portion based on fair market value. I think one area is in VA around Washington DC (not the whole state?). Imagine owning a Ford GT and having your taxes GO UP every year as the market value also goes up (maybe staying the same this year though as market is flat to down over last year).

We'd always thought of MA as "Taxachusetts" but when we moved there we found that the total tax bill was pretty tolerable. The MA income tax is fixed percentage of federal but real estate taxes were out of the field. This is because cities (and schools) are on their own. In the other states we've lived (IA, AZ, CO) the schools and cities get an infusion of funds from state collected taxes. So the total taxes were on par. It helps some smaller cities/towns with low tax bases but then the flip side is that people feel they are subsidizing others. I think the latter is fairer having seen what the schools were like in some of the very small MA towns.