I sure wouldnt want your taxes. That is for sure. Dont you pay nearly 100% tax on a vehicle purchase?

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83 300TD (need rear wiper assembly dead or alive)
84 300SD Daily driver
85 300TD almost 400k miles and driven daily.
98 E300D *sold
86 300SDL *sold and made flawless 10 hour journey to new home.

Taxes - hmmm - well in my opinion it isn't too bad. Sure the numbers look terrible but here in Holland I get the feeling that you do get something for the taxes you pay compared with the UK (I'm English not Dutch you see so I've experienced both systems).

The Dutch BPM tax is the exception however. At the moment (it is going to change next year for a CO2 based tax I think) a new "normal" car gets a BPM tax of 42.5% before VAT at 19% is applied. The neighbour paid something like 45,000 euros for a VW Passat!!!! Not normal in my opinion. However, speak to the average Dutch man about it and they are quite ambivalent even though the tax was only introduced in 1993. If I had the vote here I'd be out campagining for its abolishment.

I think "luxury" vehicles carry a BPM rate of something like 60% - but I'm not sure about that. Its a nuts tax anyway... A Massarati quatro doory costs something like 250,000 euros here...


Sorry about the threadjack - all I can say is that life here can be very deer - he says trying to get it all back on track again...

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Tastes like chicken!

Just mix it with some pork. Not enough fat on a deer to make it taste good.

i'll tell you what though...i think Dutch women are hot!

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Ben
1987 190d 2.5Turbo

Why do you think I married one?

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

haha...gotcha.

you mean you didn't want to marry a brit with british teeth?

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Ben
1987 190d 2.5Turbo

I don't think I could ever get used to the way their language sounds though (no offense). It sounds like bad german and german sounds pretty bad already.

Dutch is not flowing like French. What do you think?

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Ben
1987 190d 2.5Turbo

I have to agree: French women are pretty flowing

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

Wow I'm impressed that you can tell the difference between German and Dutch. When I first got here I couldn't. Now it seems very different, but then I can speak it now! I'm not very good at languages though so perhaps that's why. It seems as though I've only got a limited space in my head for a second language - I could speak French quite adequately before I started to learn Dutch but now it has all gone. The last time I got stuck in France I had to resort to mime - pathetic I know - but hey ho...

As for Dutch not flowing like French - I think that has more to do with the way the Dutch are rather than their language. On the whole they are pretty succinct - pretty economical with words. However the number of words in the Dutch language is something like a third of the number of words in the English language... but occasionally I do come across a Dutch word that has no direct English translation - whereas I can get stuck trying to explain the difference between three different English words that are all translated by my dictionary to be one Dutch word!

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

So, give us an example of one...

Oh, and I too think deer are yummy.

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Codifex
1981 240D ChinaBlue (Got her running with a donor engine.)
1983 300DTurbo w/sunroof.
1984 300TD manual sunroof. (Electrical Gremlins)

Yes, like duickerbock

__________________
Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6