Mass is another car tax state. In the good old days the local government would assess your worldly possessions (like furniture) and tax it every year. I guess that at some point they gave up on that in the early 1900s (1940s or 1950s?) and it devolved into an automobile tax. I also know that it was common in Mass that you would bribe the town clerk and he would lose your file.

I moved from Mass to VA around the time that they were getting rid of the car tax in 1998-2002, which was a key plank of VA's Republican governor at the time. Unfortunately the new Democrat governor in 2002 stopped the final cut from being enacted and it remains that you get a 70% (?) rebate on the "real" amount owed.

However, in Fairfax County the rate is 4.5%, which is very high so I still paid more (with the 70% discount) than in Mass where it was the same (I think) as the real estate tax. Also the assessed value was much lower for the same car in Mass than in VA.

The rebate is also capped at $20,000 so if you have a ~$50k car then you are paying a pretty penny.

p.s. It's 5% in Arlington and they still have stickers that set you back another $30. They are also more "progressive" and provide full refund on the first $3k valuation and then apply a reduced rebate from $3k to $20k.