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Comment by flexie | Hacker News Reader

You are both kind of right and wrong. It's actually 85 percent for the value of the car up to approximately $28,500 in 2019 figures, and then 150 percent on the exceeding value.

But: Add 25 percent VAT to it as well.

So take a standard car which is $40.000 without taxes. It will be:

(28,500x1.85+11,500x2.5)1.25 = 101,844. So it is more or less like a 155 percent tax.

Take an expensive car which is $80,000 before tax:

(28,500x1.85+51,500x2.5)1.25 = $226,844 That is like a 184 percent tax.

On top of that, there are other taxes that you have to pay yearly or biannually, including a tax depending on mileage, another depending on weight, and there is also heavy taxation on gasoline.

On your bike, you pay the 25 percent VAT.

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Wow, and I guess the same taxation is applied on cars imported from Sweden/Germany? But how do you enforce that within Schengen? Might of course be an automatic check during registration, but is there no loophole?

Yeah, there isn't free flow of car registration in EU or within its Schengen area. If you buy a car in another EU country you need to register it in your country of residence and it will be taxed and slapped on with various fees according to local rules.

Another example, if you move from let's say Germany to Denmark, it's incredibly easy in many ways, but not when it comes to your car. You're allowed to have it on your German registration papers for 6 months, then you have to register it according to Danish rules, which comes with a hefty tax payment. You can choose to not do that, but then whenever you get pulled over by police, they will check the papers and fine you heavily for not registering the car in Denmark. Many expats decide to not bother at all and just sell the car in their home country.

There may be a loophole somewhere, but for the regular person there is no avoiding the taxman.

>So take a standard car which is $40.000 without taxes.

Is that really the median car sold in Denmark? I'm doubtful.

Not in Denmark because of the tax, but in other countries with similar wealth it's pretty standard. In the US and in Germany it's around $35,000.

So take a standard car which is $40.000 without taxes.

Not in Denmark because of the tax

You seem to be contradicting yourself :)

Actually I did have a dig around after my comment and I'm surprised just how much people are spending on their cars. The median wage in the UK isn't much higher than the median new car price.

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