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Yearly depreciation for an E-LSA RV-12?

WingedFrog

Well Known Member
I am asking this question because I found out recently that the property tax applied to my RV-12 has not changed over the last five years! When I complained to the county tax department I was told that they had no information about such depreciation because the RV-12 is not in their "Blue Book" (I did not know their is a blue book for GA airplanes). Anyway they would accept information based on the market if I can provide it. I cannot rely on the sales offered here and there online because the final sale value is always below asked price. My feeling is that the most compelling data would come from fellow owners who are lucky to have a competent county tax office that updates the assessed price of their RV-12 annually. With the number of E-LSA 12s flying now there should be enough data to make a compelling case and I would appreciate any help or suggestion in this regard from this great community.
Thanks!
 
I would search in the FAA database for all RV-12s in NC. Then go to each county tax web site and search for that aircraft to obtain the tax value. That's what I did for my airplane. Some county web sites were unusable, so to skip a few. Average it all out to the best of in your favor and complain to the tax office.
 
Would this formula work?

1. Find out how long most Rotax engines go before they need to be overhauled (TBO is 2,000 hours, but I don?t know if most Rotax engines make it to TBO).

2. Determine how much it costs to buy a new engine or rebuild an old one, including hoses, accessories, etc.

3. Find out what a reputable shop would charge to remove an old engine and install a new (or rebuilt) engine.

4. Add the costs together and divide by the number of hours a typical Rotax is likely to last before it needs an overhaul.

5. Take the answer to #4 and multiply it by the number of hours on your plane.

6. The answer to #5 will be the minimum amount you should be able to deduct from the value your plane was assessed at five years ago. You might be able to lower that number even more by making adjustments for paint condition, wear and tear, older avionics, etc.

7. Compare the answer to #6 to the values you determine for other RV-12s, and you should be in the ballpark of what your plane is worth.
 
Thank you for the advice provided here. I also had some help from the members of my local EAA chapter. For what it's worth here is what I concluded:

- The idea of using depreciation is a no starter for personal property taxes, only the market value is considered. The reason is that "depreciation" has a
substantially different meaning in the different contexts of the Internal
Revenue Code (the IRS, your income tax provider), and your local County tax
appraiser's office. In a County *property tax* office, they only care about the fair market value of what you own.

- The best approach might be to compile a number of advertised sales offers and select those that are the most relevant in regard to equipment, age, usage and overall shape of the airplane. A plus would be to show how these planes have been taxed in their original county if possible.

Any further idea/suggestion is welcome and if you can provide me your own RV-12 property tax basis through private messaging I would be very thankful.
 
...compile a number of advertised sales offers and select those that are the most relevant in regard to equipment, age, usage and overall shape of the airplane.
That's what I did. Comparable sales were about half of my original assessed value, so the nice people at the tax office reduced my assessed value accordingly.
 
The nice people at the tax office contacted me saying they wanted to know the value of my home-built for the property taxes. They asked what the fair market value was and I said "not much."

I told them the truth, ... How much would an informed, intelligent, person pay for an airplane built by a guy that had no experience building a plane before. And, it was built with no supervision of anyone that had ever built or even flown a plane before. Using only hand tools, I built it in a two stall garage attached to my home. I mentioned the motor was a great motor manufactured by a company that specialized in snowmobile engines.

The tax man was very nice and said maybe we should go with a value based on the total cost of the raw materials. I said that might be OK but I did make a lot of mistakes and had to reorder several parts and I mentioned the sum of the parts don't always equal the whole. I mentioned again that I built it in my garage and had no aircraft building experience.

I told him I would be happy to take him for a ride and when and if we landed safely I would go with what he would say it was worth. ...... I suggested he would be likely to say "I wouldn't give you @%#$&@ for that plane.

We settled on a fair evaluation so we were both happy and made a new friend. :)
 
I see RV-12's for sale all the time... for sale, for a long time. Prices asked in the $55-60,000 range with old model glass in them Dynon 180's with some sort of outdated Garmin small screened GPS for sale. Usually 150 -300 hours on them, or less, owned by men that can't fly any more, and want the monthly hangar fees and annual taxes, and, and and gone from their monthly budget.

That's asking price... I suspect they are thankful when they finally do get an offer on the plane and that it's at least 10% or more less than the asking price.

Those are the planes for sale that actually move on to a new owner, with a 912 uls. Put a Viking Honda motor in it, and... good luck finding a buyer. I don't see those moving, at all.
 
I took a negotiation course about 25 years ago. One of the exercises was for our group of trainees to sell shares of stock to another group. The rules were that the buyers had an undisclosed amount of real money and each side could keep what were the proceeds for us and the remaining funds for them, but if no deal was made neither group got anything. We also had a scenario describing the imperatives for selling and buying. The stock was fictitious.

The point of the exercise was to show how negotiating skills are what set the price. We got $20 of the buyer?s $25. The range went from $5 to $25.

As an ex used car salesman told me once it?s worth what you?ll take if selling or what you?ll pay if buying.
 
google it

"aircraft rate of depreciation" or just "rate of depreciation"

Lots of hits to give you some other insights to doing that kind of calc.

Then apply some realistic creative art to the methods.
 
Regarding asking prices not matching selling prices... While that is true, everything sells for less than it's advertised for, you may find that the *trend* in advertised prices tracks closely to the selling prices. So while asking prices decrease by 2% per year (or whatever) you could infer that selling prices probably do as well.
 
Regarding asking prices not matching selling prices... While that is true, everything sells for less than it's advertised for.......

Actually, large ticket personal property transactions are moving toward one-price sales. It's something the internet changed.
 
Just how much is a 2014 RV-12 with no paint, no auto pilot, with a 912 ULS and a Dynon D1000 Touch and GPS-2020 ADS-B worth, these days. 150 hours on the motor.

What would you be willing to pay for one?
 
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