Hello everyone...

Not only am I a full time Mercedes lover and a shop owner, but also a full time STUDENT! Anyway, to make this brief. I have a paper I need to write and my subject is the heavy taxes European Governments place on vehicles with an engine size greater than 2.0 litre. At least, they do this in Greece and am pretty sure of many other European countries as well. Does anyone have any information as to WHY the governments do this, and maybe where I can find more information on the subject? I figure you guys living in Europe might be able to help me out! I know this was a somewhat "off-the-subject" question, but I figured I'd start here!

MBenz...I am sure you have some input?!?!?

Thanks dearly...
Peter

Do you pay the extra taxes every year or only the first time when you buy it new? If you only pay the taxes once then buy a used car from German or someplace else with low car prices. At least in Sweden you can buy any used car (must not be tuned in any way) that is legal in say German and import it to Sweden. After the registration (cost 1.900 SEK) you can use it in Sweden. NOTE! Used car = older than 6 month and more than 6.000 km on the odometer.

All countries have special laws, often the argument is to protect us or in this case maybe they say that big engines (heavier cars) uses more gas... Sorry for not having an answer. /Patrik with a 3.2 litre car. ;-)

Peter,

You couldn't have asked a better person about these car taxes as a Dutch car driver.

The Dutch government has several car-taxes that they like to collect. These car taxes have nothing to do with the engine capacity but are based on car weight and gasoline-type.
We have to pay BPM and BTW over the price of a new car which makes a new SL600 almost twice as expensive as in Germany. The BTW is a common kind of tax that has to be paid over any kind of product and is 19,5% of the net price. The BPM is a luxury tax that needs s to be paid over cars only. The BPM is calculated over the new price and over all possible options (the options can drive the prices up sky-high). BPM will be decreased on a monthly base and every month of car age is worth 1% BPM discount. So if one is to import a car that is 50 months old, one will get 50% discount on the total BPM amount. As soon as the car is older as 90 months, one has to pay a bottom BPM of 10% always.
I went looking for a Belgium 1997 SL with glass hardtop and a little front damage last Saturday and was pleased by the price of the car. When I want to import that 4-year-old car to the Netherlands, I would have to pay an additional 40-45.000 guilder (19.500US$) just to get Dutch registration papers!
New diesel engine cars will get a 2000 guilder upgrade for the sake of the environment.
Owning a car has to be paid on a monthly base as well. Each month (or every three months) we have to pay road taxes. I have to pay almost 4000 guilder (1.750US$) per year for owning my C250D and 300SL (the 300CE is German registered).

In Germany one will have to pay for the capacity of the cars' engine.

If you want me to, I can try to get some more information (web related) so you can have a look into that and have it translated by a web-program.

...dutch taxes are a crime...greetingz,

Peter,

I have heard stories from acquitances in Finland and Denmark too. You might want to cross-post your question on alt.auto.mercedes. You'll get tons of feedback there. Some of it might even be useful.

Also, don't stop in Europe, unless of course you must. Different US states have funny rules too. NY state used to have a luxury tax. It might still, I haven't purchased a new car for 10 years to have noticed.

Some of the heavily industrialized asian countries have some interesting rules too, such as Hong Kong, Malasia & the Philipinnes.

-CTH

Everyone thanx for the info...

In my paper, I have to take the position of a lobbyist for Mercedes Benz and lobby to the EU Council of Ministers to eliminate the high taxes on automobiles with a large engine size. This way, Mercedes will sell more larger engine cars in Europe. My argument is that engine size isn't proprtionate to polution volume. I just needed some background information on what kind of car taxes are in Europe in relation to the environment.

Mbenz...do you know of any European websites that might be able to help me out?

cth350...is alt.auto.mercedes one of those newsgroup things? I don't know how to access those.

Thanks Again everyone...Peter

Peter,

I will search the web for some internet sites about car taxes next weekend (it is Thursday night right now and I have to get up early tomorrow morning).
If I forget it or if you think it takes to long, just mail me or send this thread back to the top again.

You've got new rims! Can you post a close up picture or a side view?

greetingz,