When I was living in the Portland area I bought a truck. 6 months later I moved to Tacoma, Washington and had to pay $625.00 to first-time license there. They said import/sales tax is to prevent people moving back-and-forth across the border. I'm sure Cali will do the same thing. I think you can maintain an Oregon license and plates you only need to visit every couple years to keep current, and students can keep their 'home address'.

 

The big thing that determines what you can do is "where is your permanent residence"?. i.e., what is the address on your drivers license.

If it is Oregon, you can buy and register the car there with the cheap registration and no sales tax. If you have a CA drivers license, you are going to have to pay CA registration fees and sales tax. If you later convert it to CA from OR, you will have to pay an "out of state pollution fee", even though the pollution control equipment is the same. And, if you try and convert the car to CA plates less than 6 months after registering it in OR, you will still have to pay the sales tax.

I played this game a couple of times when I was living in the Bay Area.

Leaving CA was one of the happiest days of my life....

Mark

 

get your license changed to oregon. use your moms address. then no one will ever ask a question. get oregon plates with an oregon license. if you buy the car for sure, before hand pm me i bought mine in beaverton about a month ago, and if i refer someone to them i get $ 500. i will split it with anybody that buys any car from there. it is too bad that your mom lives in portland, cause i lived there for a while but never changed my license from my parents coastal town. there is no deq or any smog regulations on the coast. therefore i never had to get my car checked because my license was exempt.