License Plate Fraud Costs CT Towns Millions in Tax Revenue

Connecticut towns are bleeding property tax revenue through a scheme that’s neither sophisticated nor secret: residents register their vehicles out of state while sleeping in Connecticut every night, and the agency with the best tools to stop it won’t lift a finger.

“This is the number one form of tax enesion in Connecticut,” said Jennifer Lineaweaver, the Stonington tax assessor who also leads the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers. “Connecticut is losing millions annually and our DMV does not care.”

Lineaweaver isn’t describing people who retired to Florida and never got around to updating their paperwork. She’s talking about deliberate fraud: Connecticut residents who register cars in Maine, Vermont, Montana, and other states while those vehicles sit overnight in Greenwich driveways and Stamford garages.

How Easy Is It?

Easier than filing a change of address form. Maine plates don’t require a physical visit to the state. Montana has become a go-to for owners of high-end motor homes, who register there specifically to sidestep Connecticut’s 6.35 percent sales tax on vehicle purchases while also escaping annual property tax bills. It’s a two-for-one evasion.

Vermont once confirmed that 3,600 registered vehicles there belonged to Connecticut residents. Maine counted 1,400. Both figures were almost certainly soft. “I am absolutely certain that those numbers are extremely low,” Lineaweaver told the CT Mirror. The real drain on municipal budgets across the state runs well beyond what any official count reflects.

Those aren’t just Gold Coast problems, either. In Bridgeport, City Councilman Alfredo Castillo was caught with five cars registered in neighboring Shelton, where the tax rate was lower. He saved himself roughly $1,300 in property taxes. An elected city official running the same play as the weekend cottage crowd tells you something about how common this has become.

The DMV Problem

The Connecticut General Assembly did try to address this. Lawmakers changed the law to require the DMV to look up any out-of-state plate that a local assessor flagged. The DMV refused to comply during the one year the law was on the books, then pushed to have it repealed. It was.

“Connecticut DMV says that ‘taxation’ is not their issue,” Lineaweaver said.

That posture has infuriated local assessors for years. The agency’s argument, as voiced by DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera, turns on residency law. “If they live there six months and a day, they’re considered legal residents [of Florida],” Guerrera told reporters. Six months and a day is the standard Florida uses to confer legal residency. Fine. But Connecticut law doesn’t care where a vehicle is registered. What it cares about is where the vehicle is “garaged,” which means regularly parked overnight, even on a public street. A car that sleeps in a Stamford driveway 8,000 nights in a row is taxable in Stamford. The state of registration is irrelevant.

The six-months-and-a-day rule doesn’t erase that obligation. It’s a residency test, not a garage test.

Lineaweaver’s frustration isn’t abstract. Town assessors across the state have been trying since at least 2022 to get DMV cooperation on cross-referencing plate data. They’ve hit the same wall each time. The agency that controls the data says it’s not responsible for the tax code. The officials responsible for the tax code don’t control the data.

Meanwhile, the math keeps compounding. Vermont’s 3,600 out-of-state Connecticut registrations and Maine’s 1,400 represent two states. There are 19 other states, and there’s no public accounting of how many Connecticut-garaged vehicles are registered in each of them. A 40 percent undercount in the known states alone would put the total revenue loss well into eight figures statewide. No comprehensive audit exists.

One bill in the 2026 session of the Connecticut General Assembly would give assessors direct access to DMV lookup tools without requiring agency sign-off on each query. Whether it moves is an open question. It takes a committee vote just to get a number, and a $1.3 million revenue hole in a single mid-size town doesn’t always feel urgent when the state budget runs to 4,000 line items.

“I am absolutely certain that those numbers are extremely low,” Lineaweaver said of the Vermont and Maine counts.

The cars are parked in plain sight. The law is clear. The data exists.