WTF California? They want to tax my aircraft when it hasn’t even been there?

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craig andrews

Filing Flight Plan
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Craig
Yesterday I received an “Aircraft Property Statement” from San Diego county California, looking to assess property tax on my airplane. I do not live in California, the aircraft is not registered or hangared in California, and the last time it was even in California was a fuel stop in 2018. They claim “The aircraft was seen at Brown Field in January 2023. This prompted our office to request more info”. They now want me to prove it was not in California. I told them to look at the public ADSB data to see it was no where near california, let alone San Diego

Has this ever happened to anyone else? I really do not want to be anywhere near the California tax system, and now I don’t even want to make fuel stops in CA.
 
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Not in California. But was sent a bill by the New York Port authority. Plane has never been east of ohio. They sent an image of the tail...a tail that wasn't mine. They goofed a number on the tail number but kept sending bills and late fees despite several emails and certified letters explaining their idiocy. This went on for nearly 2 years
 
If you have access to your flightware or similar record, see if there is an anomalous tag of your N-number in California. If there isn't, just send a print of that record to the tax agency with a letter saying, "no, your wrong". If there is an anomalous tag of your plane in CA, send the record to the tax agency with an explanation stating that this record is an in error, the plane has not been in CA, and ADSB records are prone to ATC data entry errors. Signed, dated, certified mail (to prove you didn't just ignore the notice).

Beyond this response, they have to prove it was in California, not the other way around.
 
Racerx said:
Not in California. But was sent a bill by the New York Port authority. Plane has never been east of ohio.
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I once received a similar bill, from a New Jersey airport IIRC. It was winter, I live in Washington state, and my airplane is open-cockpit. Just sent them a letter stating it wasn't me.

Ron Wanttaja
 
This happened to me (actually to my Father) in the automotive universe. My Dad, now deceased, owned a Ford Taurus domiciled in Cheshire Connecticut. The only thing he used it for was to ferry my Mom to the grocery store. At the time, Dad was 95 and my Mom 90.

He received a letter from the State Turnpike Authority of New Jersey, claiming the car was photographed going through a toll booth on the NJ turnpike. The photo which they included was showed a BMW not a Taurus. I took over correcting the situation.

It took about a year of letters back and forth with no result. In the meantime, the $0.25 toll with added fines went up to about $50. Finally they goofed, and included a phone number. I called it, got myself up to a supervisor, and had her look at the photo and at the copy of the registration which I had mailed multiple times. Finally she said she would reverse the fines and toll charge - and she did. Too much agida for a twenty-five cent toll!

-Skip
 
Jeff Oslick said:
If you have access to your flightware or similar record, see if there is an anomalous tag of your N-number in California. If there isn't, just send a print of that record to the tax agency with a letter saying, "no, your wrong". If there is an anomalous tag of your plane in CA, send the record to the tax agency with an explanation stating that this record is an in error, the plane has not been in CA, and ADSB records are prone to ATC data entry errors. Signed, dated, certified mail (to prove you didn't just ignore the notice).

Beyond this response, they have to prove it was in California, not the other way around.
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Unfortunately they said it was January and FlightAware history is 3 months (w/o subscription). I asked where they got their information, their reply was “someone wrote down your tail number”. So because of someone that can’t correctly read and write down a 12” high tail number, now I am the one that has to jump through the hoops? For good measure, they casually just dropped the “under penalty of perjury…” warning over the bow.
 
craig andrews said:
For good measure, they casually just dropped the “under penalty of perjury…” warning over the bow.
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If you aren't lying about it, then that phrase shouldn't bother you. It's basically the equivalent of being sworn in when testifying in court. I'm sure many people lie and put themselves in a position where the state can assess additional fines.

I appreciate not wanting to jump through hoops though. Just tell them you weren't there, send them a copy of your logbook for the dates in question if you're feeling ambitious, and ask them to clear your record.
 
Am I missing something? Even if your plane was seen in CA and they had legit proof of it, what the hell does that have to do with property tax in that state? They seem to think any state you fly to has a right to assess property tax???
 
craig andrews said:
Unfortunately they said it was January and FlightAware history is 3 months (w/o subscription). I asked where they got their information, their reply was “someone wrote down your tail number”. So because of someone that can’t correctly read and write down a 12” high tail number, now I am the one that has to jump through the hoops? For good measure, they casually just dropped the “under penalty of perjury…” warning over the bow.
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So don't perjure yourself, and tell them that?

Unfortunately, the lazy tax people will just bill you and make your life hell, so it is worth your time to "prove the negative" as best you can. IIRC California property tax law relies on where the plane was parked on Jan 1, so if you have records showing your plane in not-cali on new years day, that will probably put you way ahead. After that, your current tiedown or hangar lease docs will carry a lot of weight that you're not based in CA. Maintenance logs also carry weight if they're at shops far away.

Have fun -- sad to say, the current person you're dealing with is probably the most reasonable one to deal with -- they get worse from here -- and has the most power to nip this in the bud, so make it count. :)

$0.02 (at something like 1.16% assessed value :D )
 
T Bird said:
Am I missing something? Even if your plane was seen in CA and they had legit proof of it, what the hell does that have to do with property tax in that state? They seem to think any state you fly to has a right to assess property tax???
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No, their tax code allows them to tax any aircraft *based* there. So a resident of Nevada that bases their plane in California is still subject to California property taxes. Just like a resident of Nevada that owned a vacation house in California would be subject to property taxes.

So they are asserting that OPs plane was based there.
 
schmookeeg said:
Have fun -- sad to say, the current person you're dealing with is probably the most reasonable one to deal with -- they get worse from here -- and has the most power to nip this in the bud, so make it count. :)

$0.02 (at something like 1.16% assessed value :D )
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you are probably right that they can escalate much easier than I can. I will just write “never” in the blank that asks when it was based in their county and return their form. I really don’t like giving them the rest of the information that really isn’t their business.

fortunately, since I have not flown to California for years, it is easy to confirm that I was not there without relying on specific dates for logbook entries, track logs, ADSB history etc. I think the main takeaway is to avoid flying to California if at all possible.
 
172andyou said:
No, their tax code allows them to tax any aircraft *based* there. So a resident of Nevada that bases their plane in California is still subject to California property taxes. Just like a resident of Nevada that owned a vacation house in California would be subject to property taxes.

So they are asserting that OPs plane was based there.
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I wonder if the county offers an incentive or bounty on FBOs that report transient tail number to their tax assessor. This seems like a system that is [obviously] prone to errors. They offer no photograph or anything other than “someone saw your tail number”
 
I had the same problem with New Jersey…somehow they linked my wife who was domiciled in Texas but commuted to work out of EWR and we had a crash pad there. Airplanes never been there and and never purchased there or even registered in the state…I wrote a nice letter and explained they could kiss my ass and good luck with that…never got a response or another tax bill…this was four or five years ago. I have been a Texas resident for 56 years.
 
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I have twice received notice of unpaid tolls in Washington State for my motorcycle, which has never been there. It's a vanity plate, so I guess someone there has the same one issued in another state.

When I told them it was a Wisconsin motorcycle via email, they sent me a letter saying the toll was no longer due.
 
SoonerAviator said:
I'd probably take a picture of my hand in a particular configuration and send it back to them with a note saying "payment enclosed".
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would they photoshop handcuffs around your hand?
 
craig andrews said:
They claim “The aircraft was seen at Brown Field in January 2023. This prompted our office to request more info”. They now want me to prove it was not in California. I told them to look at the public ADSB data to see it was nowhere near California, let alone San Diego
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There is the presumption of innocence. I would have come back to them and said, "That's nice, can you prove that I was there - otherwise, have a good day." Make them do the due diligence, and see what they have to substantiate this claim.

Keep us posted on this.
 
When I moved from Massachusetts to California, the former sent me two or three notices that additional payment was supposedly due on my last Massachusetts income tax return, with no explanation. I just wrote back each time saying, "My return was correct as filed. Please explain why you think I owe this money." After a few tries, they stopped sending the notices.
 
craig andrews said:
Yesterday I received an “Aircraft Property Statement” from San Diego county California, looking to assess property tax on my airplane. I do not live in California, the aircraft is not registered or hangared in California, and the last time it was even in California was a fuel stop in 2018. They claim “The aircraft was seen at Brown Field in January 2023. This prompted our office to request more info”. They now want me to prove it was not in California. I told them to look at the public ADSB data to see it was no where near california, let alone San Diego

Has this ever happened to anyone else? I really do not want to be anywhere near the California tax system, and now I don’t even want to make fuel stops in CA.
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My guess is that someone fat fingered the wrong N-number on a tracking form that went to the state. Could have been an FBO, tower controller or even someone mistyping the number at a self serve fuel pump.
 
Palmpilot said:
When I moved from Massachusetts to California, the former sent me two or three notices that additional payment was supposedly due on my last Massachusetts income tax return, with no explanation. I just wrote back each time saying, "My return was correct as filed. Please explain why you think I owe this money." After a few tries, they stopped sending the notices.
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I just write on the envelope "Deceased - return to sender..."
 
Fearless Tower said:
My guess is that someone fat fingered the wrong N-number on a tracking form that went to the state. Could have been an FBO, tower controller or even someone mistyping the number at a self serve fuel pump.
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images
 
Not aircraft, but I got nasty-grams from one or two Colorado universities for unpaid campus parking tickets. We live in Nebraska and have never even passed through either town, let alone visited their campus or parked there. No amount of mailed responses would get them to stop, and of course they kept adding late fees and penalties and interest. Then they turned them over to collection agencies, who similarly ignored my responses.

I did write letters in response, telling each new collection agency that the debt was bogus, they would never get a penny from me, and if it showed up on my credit report I’d sue. Eventually they gave up, I guess. The letters eventually stopped.

Then about a year later I got another letter from a different state agency. Seems a car we traded in to a dealer was left by the side of the road, still apparently titled in our name… we declined to go and retrieve it, since we’d traded it off because the transmission was failing.

Weird stuff.
 
They're the worst - bunch of thieves...

I once had to pay a year's worth of property taxes on a plane I didn't own for any part of that year to San Diego while not living or setting foot anywhere near San Diego for that year... They call it "property tax" but apparently it can be applied to non-property as well. Complete extortion and theft.
 
With the IRS and state taxing authori8ties, you're not innocent until proven guilty. The IRS can garnish wages, give penalties, etc. They usually target those that can't afford to fight or just get confused and pay up (senior citizens).

I'm not sure how a CA taxing body can put a lien on your out of state home or other property, but maybe they can.
 
Yeah, the burdens of proof are backwards, the rules for jurisdiction are broken, the language is misleading, and there's no mechanism to penalize the errors with any degree of effectiveness. If there were allowed to tax property other than real estate in the first place, they should have to prove citizenship for a year as well as ownership of the aircraft, it should be called extortion, and if they screw it up you should be able successfully sue them for damages in addressing the concern, and your lost time in doing so. But we don't make that happen, so they get away with it.
 
craig andrews said:
Yesterday I received an “Aircraft Property Statement” from San Diego county California, looking to assess property tax on my airplane. I do not live in California, the aircraft is not registered or hangared in California, and the last time it was even in California was a fuel stop in 2018. They claim “The aircraft was seen at Brown Field in January 2023. This prompted our office to request more info”. They now want me to prove it was not in California. I told them to look at the public ADSB data to see it was no where near california, let alone San Diego

Has this ever happened to anyone else? I really do not want to be anywhere near the California tax system, and now I don’t even want to make fuel stops in CA.
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How about your logbook? Send them an email that says "Under penalty of perjury, I state that I am the only person with access to fly my aircraft. I landed the aircraft at airport KABC on date X before you claim it was in CA and left the same airport on date Y after. From my logbook, I know there were no flights in between. The aircraft was in my hangar / on the ramp in state AA on the date in question." Then include an image of your pilot log book showing you made those consecutive flights in your airplane with nothing in between. Best if one of those flights is right next to the CA claimed dates, but probably not.
 
bflynn said:
How about your logbook? Send them an email that says "Under penalty of perjury, I state that I am the only person with access to fly my aircraft. I landed the aircraft at airport KABC on date X before you claim it was in CA and left the same airport on date Y after. From my logbook, I know there were no flights in between. The aircraft was in my hangar / on the ramp in state AA on the date in question." Then include an image of your pilot log book showing you made those consecutive flights in your airplane with nothing in between. Best if one of those flights is right next to the CA claimed dates, but probably not.
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Why give them any authority to BS claims? They don’t deserve a response…

Sounds like we should make a mailing list and send fake bills as some (or many) will pay and we can earn some free money.
 
craig andrews said:
Unfortunately they said it was January and FlightAware history is 3 months (w/o subscription). I asked where they got their information, their reply was “someone wrote down your tail number”. So because of someone that can’t correctly read and write down a 12” high tail number, now I am the one that has to jump through the hoops? For good measure, they casually just dropped the “under penalty of perjury…” warning over the bow.
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So they can put you under oath via a letter? Is there a signature block that they want you to sign that you are attesting to the response that you give them?
 
bflynn said:
How about your logbook? Send them an email that says "Under penalty of perjury, I state that I am the only person with access to fly my aircraft. I landed the aircraft at airport KABC on date X before you claim it was in CA and left the same airport on date Y after. From my logbook, I know there were no flights in between. The aircraft was in my hangar / on the ramp in state AA on the date in question." Then include an image of your pilot log book showing you made those consecutive flights in your airplane with nothing in between. Best if one of those flights is right next to the CA claimed dates, but probably not.
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They have already shown themselves to be untrustworthy, so I didn't want to share any additional information. I decided not to send anything about logbook, ADSB, etc. There was a place on their form for the initial date the aircraft was based in San Diego county, I wrote that I have never even had this aircraft in their county. I did tell them what airport I hangar the plane, but that was the limit of what I chose to share. I suspect they will call my base airport and ask them to go out and see if my plane is in the hangar.
I visit a lot of states with my aircraft, but California is one I will avoid like the plague.
 
topgun260 said:
So they can put you under oath via a letter? Is there a signature block that they want you to sign that you are attesting to the response that you give them?
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Yea. They said they were not going to drop this and it would remain active and they would continue to pursue until I sign and mail back their stupid form.

My brilliant wife told me to just ask them if whomever misrepresented my tail number being at their airport, also signs and attests to that fact under the same penalty of perjury. However, my wife is always thinking at a higher level than me, so maybe she actually wants them to come take me away. To be on the safe side, I did not take her advice.
 
172andyou said:
No, their tax code allows them to tax any aircraft *based* there. So a resident of Nevada that bases their plane in California is still subject to California property taxes. Just like a resident of Nevada that owned a vacation house in California would be subject to property taxes.

So they are asserting that OPs plane was based there.
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Yes, this is what they are claiming, i.e., that while I live 1300 miles from San Diego, I hangar in San Diego for the convenience. But there seems to be no ramifications of them falsely going after aircraft owners without first doing even the slightest amount of due diligence. Why should the burden be on the aircraft owner? If they think my aircraft is based in their county, they should have to send their proof. I would never have any avionics or engine work done in California for fear it is on the ground long enough for their tax guy to see it and put some sort of claim on my plane.
 
craig andrews said:
Yesterday I received an “Aircraft Property Statement” from San Diego county California, looking to assess property tax on my airplane. I do not live in California, the aircraft is not registered or hangared in California, and the last time it was even in California was a fuel stop in 2018. They claim “The aircraft was seen at Brown Field in January 2023. This prompted our office to request more info”. They now want me to prove it was not in California. I told them to look at the public ADSB data to see it was no where near california, let alone San Diego

Has this ever happened to anyone else? I really do not want to be anywhere near the California tax system, and now I don’t even want to make fuel stops in CA.
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It’s happened to me. My plane was in California for half a year. Just slightly less than half a year actually. The Property Tax folk sent me the pay the Property Tax letter. I replied with a letter explaining why it was in California for that period of time. That was the end of it. Later I got a letter from the State Board of Equalization. That’s the Sales/Use Tax folk. Not that simple with them. They required documentation showing that the plane was elsewhere, not in California, for more than half of the year. That took more than just a few hours of my time to gather the information showing where it was and send it to them.
 
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Jeff Oslick said:
If you have access to your flightware or similar record, see if there is an anomalous tag of your N-number in California. If there isn't, just send a print of that record to the tax agency with a letter saying, "no, your wrong". If there is an anomalous tag of your plane in CA, send the record to the tax agency with an explanation stating that this record is an in error, the plane has not been in CA, and ADSB records are prone to ATC data entry errors. Signed, dated, certified mail (to prove you didn't just ignore the notice).

Beyond this response, they have to prove it was in California, not the other way around.
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Where can you get 5 year old ADSB data, without having to pay for it?
 
172andyou said:
If you aren't lying about it, then that phrase shouldn't bother you. It's basically the equivalent of being sworn in when testifying in court. I'm sure many people lie and put themselves in a position where the state can assess additional fines.

I appreciate not wanting to jump through hoops though. Just tell them you weren't there, send them a copy of your logbook for the dates in question if you're feeling ambitious, and ask them to clear your record.
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What a naive response.
 
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