tvo7

How do most people pay for a SLR mcclaren? DO they lease it or just outright bring 500k of cash and drop it on the table?

ClayJ

I don't know if you're going to find any available statistics on this one....

According to reports, only 200 SLR's were sold in 2005....

My experience is that folks buying an SLR are paying cash on the barrelhead.

PaulX608

I haven't ever asked specifically about the SLR, but I was at my dealer admiring a Maybach 57 one day and I asked the sales guy the same basic question. Like ClayJ said, I was told that when things like that are sold, they generally aren't financed. Basically, if you can afford it, you just go in and buy it. Must be nice, right?

IwantA124

I don't think they even have lease programs on cars of that caliber.

tvo7

I know what you mean, to pay cash on 500k car I wish I could be making that type of money I wonder if any guys on here who bought a SLR would tell us if they just paid cash, financed it or leased it.

S-Clusiv

They have lease programs on the Maybach 57..I remember coming 2 inches away from trading my S and putting $40,000 down at Keyes European.

S-Clusiv

did YOU buy them??

mick1

don't know but i think just the insurance premium on a $500,000 car would be higher than the car payments for most nice cars.

NY C32

If MB credit isn't offering a lease on a SLR, I would thing that you could still find a leasing company that would. I think you would need more that just a good FICO score to qualify though. I would guess the person who might lease this car would lease it through their company as a company car such as doctors and lawyers.

Toog4me

Hahahaha, imagine that you did finance the car though. Let's say with 20% down, you're financing 400k. And you're paying it off in 5 years-- this is all the bare minimum btw. And, you're getting it at 6%. Again, these numbers are VERY low, I'm just assuming the best.

YOUR MONTHLY PAYMENTS WOULD BE $7733.12!!!

Can you imagine spending $7,800 a month on a ****ING CAR??? lol.

McLAREN SLR

This is what the Insurance cost per year on my SLR here in New York

NeilC123

I think with cars like that - unless you can afford to buy it straight away without asking the price - probably not worth bothering.

A_B

I emailed the Canadian sales rep for the SLR Mclaren a while back out of curiosity just to see what the lease would be on an SLR this is the response - don't forget this is Canadian Dollars:


"The lease depends on a pre-payment, but to give you an idea, you are
looking at $7,900 +tax for 36 months with $150K down,
Please let me know if you need anything else"

Tax for a car in Canada is a I believe 15% if its GST(7) and PST(8) It may just be one or the other.

tvo7

I wonder how you justify to the IRS that you need an SLR for the company car? That would be awesome to tax deduct and LSR if you can get away with it. I would love to hear the IRS agent talking to someone and the person replies, "I need an SLR cuz the company pays me to drive around in a SLR to get to work"

farrbar

I suspect this tactic crosses the to the bad side of gray.... but it is not uncommon for a high end car (SLR, Enzo....) to be leased, and here is how:

Lease the car through the your company, resulting in huge monthly payments, that the company takes as a tax deduction for "business use" % of monthly pmts. It is a car that probably gets little use, so once a year the owner takes a lengthy "business trip" in the car, such that business use is 80 or 90% of total use. The lease is structured so that they buyout option is very low i.e. 15% residual. Then at the end of the lease, the individual (not the company) buys the car. Thus, you take a $400K car such as the SLR do a two year lease that has an option to buy at $60K, the company would have expenses 80 or 90% of $340K (plus interest) in the form of lease payments, and the owner of the Company buys the car in his name at the end of the lease for dirt cheap. A tactic such as this pays for the car while reducing corporate tax and personal tax. While I don't believe it is ethical, it can effectively reduce the cars cost by 50+%, net of tax benefits, when compared to how the average man has to pay for a car.

merc655

farrbar, you are one correct man.

If you can afford to even go seriously look at an SLR, then chances are you have the money to just flat out buy the car (which is what most do). Sadly enough, quite a few of the SLRs will be bought and paid for by the method so well described ^ by farrbar. There are many corporate tax loopholes, that being one of them.

blume

i dont see a problem with ethics when going by the rules and not harming anyone. those are the rules and we should all be so lucky as to be able to take advantage of them.

mick1

Wow. That is not too bad because i thought i would be a whole lot higher

cost of a slr = at least more than 11 times the cost of my car
insurance cost/yr = only 3.6 times more than the insurance cost/yr for my car.

abalto

You can't do that. You would have to buy the car for a fair market value. Even if you did this so called 15% residual/2 yr lease, you would have to recapture the difference between the lease buy-out figure and the actual market value. If you ever got audited you would get hammered doing what you are saying. People that operate above board would never do what you are saying. People that function below board, I guess they might try and do anything.

NY C32

I agree with Abalto... Paying fair market value for the car after the lease ends is probably a good way to keep this on the up and up.

Big money car leases aren't unusual for business owners as long as the business itself can afford the payment. In most cases, the company car is considered a benefit and imputed as income but since they're the business owner, it usually doesn't prevent them from doing so.

I was at the American College of Cardiology a couple weeks ago and an auto leasing company was at the exhibit hall. http://www.doctorsautolease.com/ specializes in big money car leases.

ClayJ

Playing tax games with a $500K car is only going to get one in trouble -- and then compound the error with the entirely abnormal business expenses related to its upkeep.... You're not going to filter successfully through the IRS's "averages" software -

Contrary to popular belief, what you see in the movies, and the philosophy of the current Administration in Washington DC, purposely breaking the law is never a good idea -- and very, very seldom worth it.....

NY C32

I agree 100% but you could, as a business owner, legally and ethically lease any vehicle you want through your business as your company car. You could even buy a car and lease it to your company for you to use.

RobertG

Wtf politics have to do with this topic?

Mr.Gearhead

However, if the company is public.. I am sure Senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley will have something to say about this...

ClayJ

Tax law contains many provisions for 'ordinary and necessary' - especially concerning automobiles, and leased automobiles.

Unless one is in the supercar business (or a MBZ dealer who sells alot of SLR's, perhaps) I seriously doubt that the claimant would survive the challenging of the expenses and deductions.... Seriously doubt it.

And fraud is fraud -- doesn't really matter usually in the end how well one can dress it up in the beginning....

And then there is the whole matter of constructive, taxable income to the owner or officer using the 'company' car....

And on and on it goes....

It's just dumb, really -- and many dumb people go to prison over their stupidity...which 'seemed like a good idea (to them) at the time'....