Moreover, any vehicle over 11 years old is registered once and you get a permanent plate with no renewal fees every year. This includes trailers as well.

HOWEVER... Be aware that other state DMV's are well aware of this and many consider it to be a tax-evasion scam, so use care.

My personal position is that if you register in Montana ONLY for the purposes of evading your home state taxes, you are at risk. Therefore, I believe it is necessary that you ACTUALLY have some sort of business that has nexus to Montana, which legitimizes that business owning vehicles registered in Montana.

In my case, I have a "news gathering" company (I'm a journalist) that has its web and email hosting from a Montana-based ISP. The Montana LLC is owned by my New Mexico LLC, and the vehicles are owned by the Montana LLC. The registered agent in Montana provides a mailing address and mail forwarding, which I never use because I never give anyone a street address for the business, because it's ENTIRELY web-based.

It is my belief that this gives me a legitimate business nexus to Montana that will defeat any allegations by my state DMV that I'm trying to evade Colorado motor vehicle taxes and fees, which, as of last year, skyrocketed and are now unbelievably high. We have the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which means the state is SUPPOSED to have a vote on new taxes, but our state courts have ruled that "fee" increases are not "taxes," so the state turned from assessing taxes to loading up vehicle registrations with enormous "fees" to fund highway programs, which it can do without asking the voters.

As a result, the state gets really pissed off when people don't register their vehicles properly or on time. There's a $100 late fee if you miss the registration deadline, for example. Because they are aware of the Montana issue, there is a significant threat that the state might challenge Montana registration of vehicles owned by Colorado residents as tax evasion.

Actually having a Montana business of some sort that you can prove if necessary would seem to resolve that, at least in my non-lawyer's opinion.

"I live a cash existence and have saved tens of thousands of dollars by doing so. I keep my cash in a safety deposit box, bought my house for cash, my car for cash and paid for the college tuitions of my three children with cash. I go to a travel agent for all of my travel arrangements and pay her with cash .. .always get a much better price than searching online for days as well. I have never had a car loan, a mortgage, a school loan, a boat loan or any other kind of loan. I have never bought into the great credit card scam of consumerism and never paid more than $1.00 for a money order nor have I paid any credit card company a penny in interest or fees. Yes, I make more money now than I did 28 years ago when I started to live on cash only but i would not live any other way. It's all very basic. If you can't afford to pay for it . . .don't buy it...America does not need banks or credit cards . . .use common sense and live within your means. Maybe that is what the so called "poor" are doing."

Now, although these google numbers seems wonderful, especially since it's all free, and I've enabled all the privacy options on this service, including not having my voice on the recorded greeting.

My CONCERN is that when I return a call using Google voice, my call is still being recorded by Google to the point of being able to match my voice to all the various numbers I use. What do you think?

Submitted Link #1: http://www.google.com/voice...

I've asked this a couple of times, but haven't heard from any other readers yet. Maybe someone new has an answer:

Have you successfully registered a car in Massachusetts with no trace to your name?

The issue is that in MA, the form to apply for insurance and to get a registration is one and the same. Following HTBI, I would get insurance in my own name, but then the RMV would get my name too.

Link provided is to the form in question.

Nice to know. My response would be to cover the month and year of birth with a piece of tape, leaving only the year of birth. One might also cover one's last name, or perhaps first and middle names. At need, one can lift up the tape, but for identification purposes, the photo and year of birth ought to be sufficient to buy beer. They need to know you're 21, and that's all they need to know.

Anyway, I wonder if what Iris experienced might be fall-out from the recent shooting of a Johns Hopkins physician; not so far from Virginia.

For myself, I would certainly ask a LOT of questions about the ID business: How long it is kept, by whom it may be accessed, etc.

I am working on my levels of privacy and haven't gotten the passport yet, and should have discussed this privacy invasion with someone there at the hospital. But just thought I'd let others know of a potential situation where you'd be asked to identify yourself and they keep copy of your ID. Maybe tomorrow I'll get into the situation with the hospital and ask them what happens if someone doesn't have ID or such, how long they keep the copy of DL, and other privacy related questions.

... My wife was in the ICU of a small hospital twice this past spring and had many visitors. No one was ever asked for ID.

Perhaps larger hospitals have stricter rules.