I am about to buy a boat and currently live in Illinois. Was considering registering witht he USCG to avoid paying the state sales tax. I know that there can be a user fee if you use it in illiois 60 consecutive days or something like that. Any idea on how hard it is to get a boat registered or how long it takes. Any advice would be appreciated.

Theres no way to avoid it...either way you might be able to fool the DNR if they are not up to speed but sooner or later the state will catch up to you. Even though the boat will be USCG documented you will still get hassled about the IL tags/sticker....and you cant get those without having the tax's paid for....

Couldn't do that here in NJ.. Even though I registered with the CG I still had to register with the state and pay the taxes.... $7500...oh well...it was a built in cost anyway...

NY is the same. Even if it's CG documented you have to register for state ID #s and pay the sales tax. They even look up the value of the boat in a NADA book.

If you doc in NC they will never know you have it.

But if you keep at a marina they turn you in. If you tag a trailer, it throws a red flag. If you piss off an ex and they turn you in you get hit with back taxes and fines.

Also, the WL officers are goofy. They pull you anyways because you dont have the state stickers.

I wouldn't do it to beat the taxes. I was told by the Ohio tax guy they do find everybody, and you don't want to be caught not paying the taxes.

I have heard that USCG document the boat with a homeport in Louisana since Louisana does not charge sales tax on used boats.

Wally is exactly right. No since in trying. It doesn't seem to get you much benefit in IL to document. You still must fill out the RUT-75 in order to get a state sticker through DNR and without that state sticker you will get hassled.

I don't understand why you would try to get out of paying your taxes, it's not like we have high taxes here in IL or anything.

It's funny you mention that... When I was at the DMV registering my boat, the woman behind the counter said I owed $3000 in taxes.... I didn't think twice and said; "Are you sure that's right? Seem's low." She looked at it again and said, oops, I made a mistake.....

I often wonder if the "mistake" would have been picked up when the paperwork was submitted to Trenton or if it would have gone un-noticed and I could have kept the extra cash...

In this case, being honest may have cost me a couple grand but my instinct told me to do the honest thing.... Shame on me or good for me, depending how you look at it... At least I can sleep at night.

Most of the guys I know register because water patrol can;t mess with you much. I was on a boat with a guy who got pulled over by water patrol and he basically told them to F-off he was CG certified and they did. They have to call coast guard to board the boat or anything supposedly. I never knew this and don't know if it was a one time instance but I have heard it from several CG registered people. Had a man at KY lake poker run this weekend giving me the same spill about his being certified. Anyone have any input on this?