As long as there is also not a personal property tax on top of the sales tax, the sales tax on the used car makes sense to me, being from New York. The atrocious part, is that the dealer is able to charge only a 4% rate instead of the 6+% rate.

The trade-in reducing the taxable value is also similar to New York, I'm not entirely sure how to make that fair for private party sales; but I find it a bit less concerning.

Potentially if you were to sell and buy a car within 90 days from each other, the sale price could be subtracted from the taxable value that you should pay.