The state of KS taxes an airplane based on its market value. If I spend $30K on a kit, $30K on engine and instrument, and the plane is worth say $85K when completed, they'll tax it based on $85K. The annual property tax on a $20K C152 is over $1000. I don't want to pay over $4000 of airplane property tax per year.
For several years I shared a hangar with a guy who built beautiful experimentals, He built several RV6's, but also a Harmon Rocket and an aerobatic single seater. He had an interesting strategy for dealing with the county tax collector. A homebuilt can be named anything you wish when you register it, so instead of registering his RV6 as a such, he registered it with the FAA as a "Wilson Devil Dog". Then claimed the value as he saw it. This guy was quite paranoid about after sales liability, and he built an average of one airplane every other year. When selling one of his airplanes, he would remove the engine (kept it for his next project.) That way, the airplane he sold was not flyable, and he felt could claim it was not airworthy, and he was less exposed liability wise. So in his eyes, an RV 6 was worth about $20K (sans engine) not the $60K the tax collector would find for comparables on Trade A Plane.
Bottom line, he'd claim the airplane as a $20K "Devil Dog" and the tax collector had no basis to disagree with his value. Interesting approach.
