Addressing Tax Issues

Go backward to A New Seahood Jump ahead to Provisioning for the Cruise Return to the Latest Log

This page was last updated on August 11, 2004

1 August. Disappearing from the California Tax Rolls

California cruisers continue to fight city hall. They can be enjoying the good life half-way around the world, and yet California chases them with huge tax bills, the worst of which can be boat (property) tax. Sailing magazines are forever publishing horror stories about California putting liens on boats whose owners weren't aware that they owed taxes while they were out of the country. Rumors abound about confiscated boats.

From Stan's indepth study of the voracious California coffer, simply moving out of state wouldn't be convincing evidence to the taxman that we no longer owe CA taxes. Therefore, we've taken numerous preventive measures to ensure that a CA tax bill doesn't show up in our mailbox in Florida while we're cruising in Mexico.

Liquidate CA property. Five years ago, we dumped the last vestiges of our worldly possessions, cleaned out the condo and sold it, along with all of our furniture and the remainder of our landlubber "stuff." Come September, we'll also sell my trusty Camry. By the time we sail away, we will have no holdings in CA. SolMate will be the only property we'll own.

Change mailing address. Saint Brendon's Isle, a mail forwarding service located in Green Cove Springs, FL, was chosen because of its experience with world cruisers. With their guidance, we've established Florida residency.

Change state of residence. Back about Christmastime, while enjoying holiday frivolity at Mark's place in Homestead, we also conducted a little business. We now possess Florida driver's licenses and are registered to vote there.

Vote. Against our better judgement, we're registered on the FL voter rolls -- whether or not we're purged or actually able to vote is up to the whim of Florida officialdom (gulp -- esp. in the upcoming presidential election, I really want our votes to count, and esp. in Florida. Absentee ballots would be so easy to tamper with....)

Pay taxes. The Feds have been informed of our new residence and new mailing address, as have the CA bloodsuckers. We will be paying taxes in FL. According to tax experts, establishing a tax base in another state is critical to escaping CA's grasp on our bank account.

Change hailing port. This one's a bonus. SolMate is federally documented with the Coast Guard, as opposed to licensed in the state of CA. One of the CG requirements for documentation is to declare a hailing port, and to display that city and state on the boat. We originally documented from LA, but we reregistered this year using the most interesting Florida city name we could find: Aventura (it was a toss-up between Aventura, representing our adventurous cruise, or Key Largo, for a romantic movie). According to the tax experts, the hailing port isn't a consideration for establishing state of taxation, but just to be on the safe side, we changed.

Request removal from CA tax rolls. Once we've left the country, we'll write a nice little letter to Sacramento requesting the taxman remove us from the rolls. The taxman will write back and say something beaurocratically clever like, "Prove it." The burden of proof will fall to us. We will prove that we are indeed living in Mexico by sending them copies of port receipts, clearance papers, and our visas, and we'll prove that we're Florida residents by sending copies of voter registration, drivers' licenses, and our tax bill. Or something like that -- then we'll cross our fingers and hope the CA beaurocracy grinds along according to plan, and big, burly men with bad haircuts don't come and repossess our home.

SolMate's old hailing port, Los Angeles, CA, displayed
below her name in 2001, with Jeff, Leslie, and Mitch.

SolMate's new hailing port, Aventura FL, displayed
on the stern, hidden by YerSol, the Monitor wind vane

2 August. Gordon West's Ham Class

More legal compliance: the FCC requires a license to operate our SSB in the Ham bands. Stan enrolled in the licensing course two months ago and began the dual task of learning all the technical ins-and-outs of radio installation and operation plus Morse Code.

Gordo teaching at the Del Rey Yacht Club.

MJ played hooky, and we docked SolMate at Marina del Rey's Burton Chase Park guest docks, a little 35 mile sail around the point and up the coast from Long Beach. While Stan slaved in class twelve hours each day, MJ hung out with friend, Nancy, who lives on MC Hunter in Marina del Rey. While Stan learned about di-poles and propogation, MJ poked around the nautical library and visited Nancy's new grandhorse, Troubadore, the 4-year-old thoroughbred.

A news photo of Judy at Burton Chase Park.

Saturday night was the real bonus, for MJ, anyway -- Stan didn't escaped Gordo's clutches until the crowd had already dispersed. Judy Collins sang for a crowd of 4,000 in the park, right next to the guest dock. Nancy and Doug and MJ lounged in the cockpit, ring-side seats, and enjoyed the concert and the crowd. Judy's voice was as pure as ever, and the crowd was a fascinating mix of old hippies and multinational yuppies, locals and tourists. No pictures of the night, though, even when Judy walked right past us on the dock as she made her exit via the marina fire boat. Stan had taken the camera to class.

Monday, we sailed home in light and favorable breezes and easy, following seas. We flew the spinnaker on the last leg and learned that reefing the main down to the second reef point allows more air to reach the chute. With cleaner air, we were able to steer lots lower, and could even head dead downwind. We thought that was pretty good, flying an asymmetrical spinnaker tacked at the bow (as compared to a normal chute that's poled out with a better angle to the wind).

Gale slept almost the whole 8-hour trip back to LB and never got sick. We adjusted his tether so he could just reach his hobit hole by the companionway, and his litter box. He woke up a couple of times, wandered around to the extent of his tether, barely batted an eye at a huge dolphin display, and went right back to sleep on his shelf. He's going to be an okay sailor, at least when the seas are flat and the boat is steady, like they were Monday.