ray lunder wrote:
Ahoy, I live in Washington state and am thinking about my first "real"
boat- a blue water cruiser in the $30k-$120k. When I buy a car I pay
something like 8% or if it's a gift or a damaged vehicle or you phoney
up the bill of sale you still pay some arbitrary made up blue book
value the state institutes and which is not insignificant. On a $100k
boat this is $8000. Something tells me rich people don't pay this. So
what's the scam? Foreign registry or forming your own corporation or
what? Sorry to be so clueless. Thanks for your time.

I just went through this in Pt Angeles Wa. They determined the value
by going to Yachtworld and Boattrader and based the value on the lowest
price they could find for the same boat and comparable year.
As for who checks the boats in the marina, here, the state has people
who walk the marinas looking at the boats for stickers. They don't do it
often in Pt Angeles as witnessed by the number of boats with tags 2 or 3
years out of date.
Gordon