Car ?'s

Lambourne · Jan 10, 2022

Burns said:
With costs that high, it looks like it would be beneficial, if you were really into collecting cars (or just want to own two nice, high HP cars), to buy some cheep land in a non-EU country, just to keep the cars registered there.

What is that Tax called? Here, the big payment when you initially register your car is sales tax plus one year of registration. Both are set by the state. Some states of 0% sales tax, and the highest is 9.55%. Registration varies as well, some states have an extra tax on the first year, and Oregon looks to be the highest annually, up to $306/year.

I looked at multiple sites for German import info; you would think that it would mention such a large tax. Maybe that is a Belgium only thing? Here are the two sites I primarily read over:

View attachment 392054

How To Register A Car In Germany In 2024 [+ Costs]

Registering a car in Germany is a five step process. In this article, you will learn what you need to do and roughly how much it will cost you!

www.simplegermany.com

Importing a Car Into Germany | How To Germany

Learn how to make the process of importing a car into Germany easier with our expert tips. Get the information you need to know about taxes, registration and more. Make your move to Germany hassle-free.

www.howtogermany.com

It's not legal to drive with plates of a country you are not a resident of (same deal as out of state plates in the US, need to get local ones if you move to another state).

Germany is pretty cheap to register a car in, Netherlands has a CO2 based tax that's applied to new cars which is quite high (6k or so for a 3 series, 45k for an M5) which you still need to pay if you import but is prorated over time. Consequently, it's very popular to import 1-2 year old cars from Germany as you can save tens of thousands that way.
As a consequence of this tax, the average age of cars on the road in the country is higher than average which is actually a negative emissions wise (insert surprised pikachu from politicians here)

Gas is also about $8.50/gallon (seen up to €2.15/l or $9/gal along highways lately ) so actually daily driving a gas guzzler just isn't smart financially. 3 figure fillups are becoming the norm.

Most middle class car guys daily drive something reasonable and have a fun car on the side.

There's actually a fairly lively classic car importing business although that got tightened a little because people were importing 1980s Mercedes diesels by the thousands and smogging up the place.

Lanx · Jan 10, 2022

Lambourne said:
(same deal as out of state plates in the US, need to get local ones if you move to another state).

naw, theres no law against it, just as long as the car is registered/titled and has insurance, doesn't matter.

it's why those luxury car collectors have montana plates, idk ask

BrutulTM , but theres no sales and you just have to setup a llc and have a lawyer reg the title in your name all without having to goto montana, also no state inspection/emmissions, many youtubes about it.

Burns · Jan 10, 2022

Lanx said:
naw, theres no law against it, just as long as the car is registered/titled and has insurance, doesn't matter.

it's why those luxury car collectors have montana plates, idk ask BrutulTM , but theres no sales and you just have to setup a llc and have a lawyer reg the title in your name all without having to goto montana, also no state inspection/emmissions, many youtubes about it.

Pretty sure he meant there are laws requiring a new resident of a state to register their car(s) in that state within X amount of days, which is true. As always, like you mentioned, there are legal hoops that one can jump through to get around such things.

...or you can just keep your car road worthy with current out of state registration, and never get pulled over. Even if you were caught, the fine (elective tax) for breaking said law is usually a slap on the wrist, and it may get dropped at the court date, if you registered it properly, at that time.

It isn't worth it in most US states to go through all the trouble, but if yearly registration tax was thousands of dollars a year, it would be a different story.

Punko · Jan 10, 2022

Burns said:
1) With costs that high, it looks like it would be beneficial, if you were really into collecting cars (or just want to own two nice, high HP cars), to buy some cheep land in a non-EU country, just to keep the cars registered there.

2) What is that Tax called? Here, the big payment when you initially register your car is sales tax plus one year of registration. Both are set by the state. Some states of 0% sales tax, and the highest is 9.55%. Registration varies as well, some states have an extra tax on the first year, and Oregon looks to be the highest annually, up to $306/year.

3) I looked at multiple sites for German import info; you would think that it would mention such a large tax. Maybe that is a Belgium only thing? Here are the two sites I primarily read over:

View attachment 392054

How To Register A Car In Germany In 2024 [+ Costs]

Registering a car in Germany is a five step process. In this article, you will learn what you need to do and roughly how much it will cost you!

www.simplegermany.com

Importing a Car Into Germany | How To Germany

Learn how to make the process of importing a car into Germany easier with our expert tips. Get the information you need to know about taxes, registration and more. Make your move to Germany hassle-free.

www.howtogermany.com

1) This is illegal. You have to register your cars in your country of residence. Occasional residence doesn't count, it has to be your main place.

2) "belasting op inverkeersstelling" (tax to put it in the traffic, literally translated)- if you do some effort you can simulate it here on our govt site: Vlaams Belastingsportaal

3) The rules aren't even equal across Belgium, Brussels has more beneficial ones, Walloon it depends.

Cars in Germany are cheap as fuck, because the car industry is so important to them, and all the people working at the big german car companies get a company reduction on cars, meaning they have a very nice 2nd hand market. Also note: it is not illegal in Germany to reduce the mileage on a vehicle. Imagine that.

You can't compare Belgium to Germany, we are much closer to the Netherlands, though they simply add 20-50% to the MSRP as a main form of taxation.

Punko · Jan 10, 2022

Lambourne said:
It's not legal to drive with plates of a country you are not a resident of (same deal as out of state plates in the US, need to get local ones if you move to another state).

Germany is pretty cheap to register a car in, Netherlands has a CO2 based tax that's applied to new cars which is quite high (6k or so for a 3 series, 45k for an M5) which you still need to pay if you import but is prorated over time. Consequently, it's very popular to import 1-2 year old cars from Germany as you can save tens of thousands that way.
As a consequence of this tax, the average age of cars on the road in the country is higher than average which is actually a negative emissions wise (insert surprised pikachu from politicians here)

Gas is also about $8.50/gallon (seen up to €2.15/l or $9/gal along highways lately ) so actually daily driving a gas guzzler just isn't smart financially. 3 figure fillups are becoming the norm.

Most middle class car guys daily drive something reasonable and have a fun car on the side.

There's actually a fairly lively classic car importing business although that got tightened a little because people were importing 1980s Mercedes diesels by the thousands and smogging up the place.

This, except you didn't mention that shitty import companies will offer you cars with reduced mileage.

You only pay them to facilitate the transaction, you buy the car directly from the German garage, and since reducing mileage is legal in Germany, you can't do fuck all about it.

Dealer or good garage can read out modules that keep track of distance, besides the main one, so you'll at least know you got fucked.

Burns · Jan 10, 2022

Punko said:
1) This is illegal. You have to register your cars in your country of residence. Occasional residence doesn't count, it has to be your main place.

2) "belasting op inverkeersstelling" (tax to put it in the traffic, literally translated)- if you do some effort you can simulate it here on our govt site: Vlaams Belastingsportaal

3) The rules aren't even equal across Belgium, Brussels has more beneficial ones, Walloon it depends.

Cars in Germany are cheap as fuck, because the car industry is so important to them, and all the people working at the big german car companies get a company reduction on cars, meaning they have a very nice 2nd hand market. Also note: it is not illegal in Germany to reduce the mileage on a vehicle. Imagine that.

You can't compare Belgium to Germany, we are much closer to the Netherlands, though they simply add 20-50% to the MSRP as a main form of taxation.

With moving violations (as they are classified in the US), legality only matters with how likely it is to getting caught, plus the fine for the violation. In the states, the chance of getting caught is extremely low and the fine is inconsequential. Although the fine is probably much higher for trying to avoid such a huge tax, for those that have it in the EU.

And yea, I use Germany as a default when looking at EU rules, since they are the dominate power. Tis a bit funny that BMW and Merc, with a huge employee voting block, can beat back the environmentalists to make such a huge difference in policy with, seemingly, the rest of the EU.

Burren · Jan 10, 2022

Punko said:
1) This is illegal. You have to register your cars in your country of residence. Occasional residence doesn't count, it has to be your main place.

2) "belasting op inverkeersstelling" (tax to put it in the traffic, literally translated)- if you do some effort you can simulate it here on our govt site: Vlaams Belastingsportaal

3) The rules aren't even equal across Belgium, Brussels has more beneficial ones, Walloon it depends.

Cars in Germany are cheap as fuck, because the car industry is so important to them, and all the people working at the big german car companies get a company reduction on cars, meaning they have a very nice 2nd hand market. Also note: it is not illegal in Germany to reduce the mileage on a vehicle. Imagine that.

You can't compare Belgium to Germany, we are much closer to the Netherlands, though they simply add 20-50% to the MSRP as a main form of taxation.

So what's your net tax rate per year, 70%? Or, is that just the Scandinavian countries?

Springbok · Jan 10, 2022

Bought a new Defender for the wife (our last one was a massive pos, so like a genius I bought her another one). Ordered the new one back in May, showed up end of December. Paid MSRP through a dealer in Fort Worth (everyone else is charging $20k over wtf). Seems like it's only going to take longer to get new vehicles and the supply chain issues are getting worse. Car itself is great so far but as a land rover I ain't gonna hold my breath.

Now for me, I'm still waiting for a reasonably priced great looking electric sedan/sports car but still... nothing. Still I wait. I was kinda digging the Rivians, but that all looks like a pipe dream, at a minimum for the next 3 years. On the car front, still nothing really does it for me. A 2 door Porsche electric is very appealing, but they can't even get base 911's out the door so I don't think that's a realistic possibility any time soon. Whole thing just kinda sucks at the minute. The Audi one looks great, but it's too much $$ for what it is, same for the Taycan. In both instances, I'd rather have other models in the lineup with more performance/$ and they both don't look so great that I have to have them over their ICE counterparts. Maybe BMW will come up with something, but their design language has gone completely off the rails lately.

Burren · Jan 10, 2022

Springbok said:
Bought a new Defender for the wife (our last one was a massive pos, so like a genius I bought her another one). Ordered the new one back in May, showed up end of December. Paid MSRP through a dealer in Fort Worth (everyone else is charging $20k over wtf). Seems like it's only going to take longer to get new vehicles and the supply chain issues are getting worse. Car itself is great so far but as a land rover I ain't gonna hold my breath.

Now for me, I'm still waiting for a reasonably priced great looking electric sedan/sports car but still... nothing. Still I wait. I was kinda digging the Rivians, but that all looks like a pipe dream, at a minimum for the next 3 years. On the car front, still nothing really does it for me. A 2 door Porsche electric is very appealing, but they can't even get base 911's out the door so I don't think that's a realistic possibility any time soon. Whole thing just kinda sucks at the minute. The Audi one looks great, but it's too much $$ for what it is, same for the Taycan. In both instances, I'd rather have other models in the lineup with more performance/$ and they both don't look so great that I have to have them over their ICE counterparts. Maybe BMW will come up with something, but their design language has gone completely off the rails lately.

The only way forward, is to go back. The used sports car market is the hottest its ever been as people realize that lighter weight, more involvement, and fewer gimmicks is better than a golf car going 0-60 in 2 seconds, while yawning.

Go find something interesting looking/sounding/driving with a soul.

Lambourne · Jan 11, 2022

Springbok said:
Bought a new Defender for the wife (our last one was a massive pos, so like a genius I bought her another one). Ordered the new one back in May, showed up end of December. Paid MSRP through a dealer in Fort Worth (everyone else is charging $20k over wtf). Seems like it's only going to take longer to get new vehicles and the supply chain issues are getting worse. Car itself is great so far but as a land rover I ain't gonna hold my breath.

Now for me, I'm still waiting for a reasonably priced great looking electric sedan/sports car but still... nothing. Still I wait. I was kinda digging the Rivians, but that all looks like a pipe dream, at a minimum for the next 3 years. On the car front, still nothing really does it for me. A 2 door Porsche electric is very appealing, but they can't even get base 911's out the door so I don't think that's a realistic possibility any time soon. Whole thing just kinda sucks at the minute. The Audi one looks great, but it's too much $$ for what it is, same for the Taycan. In both instances, I'd rather have other models in the lineup with more performance/$ and they both don't look so great that I have to have them over their ICE counterparts. Maybe BMW will come up with something, but their design language has gone completely off the rails lately.

New 5 series will start production in the 2nd half of next year and will include a full electric version. I'm hoping it's more restrained looking too. i4 seems to be selling well though, some Euro forums reporting that for some countries the entire allotment for 2022 already sold out a month ago. Probably because like you many people want something that's not a SUV or Tesla.

Punko · Jan 11, 2022

Burren said:
So what's your net tax rate per year, 70%? Or, is that just the Scandinavian countries?

54%ish on my income.

Though my energy/water bills are like 35% actual cost, with 65% taxes on top of them, to make sure people that simply don't pay their shit still get it.

Then I pay 21% TVA on the taxes.

Punko · Jan 11, 2022

Lambourne said:
New 5 series will start production in the 2nd half of next year and will include a full electric version. I'm hoping it's more restrained looking too. i4 seems to be selling well though, some Euro forums reporting that for some countries the entire allotment for 2022 already sold out a month ago. Probably because like you many people want something that's not a SUV or Tesla.

The I4 has disappointing performance at best.

0-100 in 5.7, for that price, seems absolute shit.

This is a thing because its a BMW. If it was a Volkswagen I wouldn't mind it.

Tesla model 3 long range does it in 4.6. That isn't even a performance model.

Burren · Jan 11, 2022

Punko said:
54%ish on my income.

Though my energy/water bills are like 35% actual cost, with 65% taxes on top of them, to make sure people that simply don't pay their shit still get it.

Then I pay 21% TVA on the taxes.

What's the benefit to you, as a citizen? We hear all sorts of things here about European countries, their taxes, the regulations, the lack of freedom, etc. But, I don't think we actually know the truth of things; I certainly don't. So, with paying all of that tax and with fairly restrictive limits on what you can and what you can own, what is the benefit/tradeoff?

Springbok · Jan 11, 2022

Punko said:
The I4 has disappointing performance at best.

0-100 in 5.7, for that price, seems absolute shit.

This is a thing because its a BMW. If it was a Volkswagen I wouldn't mind it.

Tesla model 3 long range does it in 4.6. That isn't even a performance model.

The performance versions of both seem to indicate the BMW is quicker off the line and quicker from speed, and you then don't have to drive a dildo on wheels (not to say the Bimmer is stunning by any means, just in comparison to the dog ugly Tesla).

Springbok · Jan 11, 2022

Lambourne said:
New 5 series will start production in the 2nd half of next year and will include a full electric version. I'm hoping it's more restrained looking too. i4 seems to be selling well though, some Euro forums reporting that for some countries the entire allotment for 2022 already sold out a month ago. Probably because like you many people want something that's not a SUV or Tesla.

Yeah, I've got a 21' M550 as my daily and it's a very good car but want something electric as a kind of "weekend" car/toy but just nothing out that is appealing to me... yet.

Sanrith Descartes · Jan 11, 2022

Punko said:
The I4 has disappointing performance at best.

0-100 in 5.7, for that price, seems absolute shit.

This is a thing because its a BMW. If it was a Volkswagen I wouldn't mind it.

Tesla model 3 long range does it in 4.6. That isn't even a performance model.

This is the thing with all the upcoming "tesla killers". Its all gravy until you start putting these boys on the actual roads with actual drivers. Wait until the Lightning comes out and they find its "actual" unloaded mileage is around 240 or so before payload or turning on the heater. Tesla, for all its shit, has already had to work through these pains.

Sanrith Descartes · Jan 11, 2022

Springbok said:
Yeah, I've got a 21' M550 as my daily and it's a very good car but want something electric as a kind of "weekend" car/toy but just nothing out that is appealing to me... yet.

I just saw a Jag I-Pace on the road and its like 30% smaller than the pictures made it seem. Was totes disappointed.

Springbok · Jan 11, 2022

Sanrith Descartes said:
This is the thing with all the upcoming "tesla killers". Its all gravy until you start putting these boys on the actual roads with actual drivers. Wait until the Lightning comes out and they find its "actual" unloaded mileage is around 240 or so before payload or turning on the heater. Tesla, for all its shit, has already had to work through these pains.

Tesla has the best electric vehicle engineers in the world, no question. It's actually kind of annoying how long it's taking the "big boys" to catch up in that department, but I suspect they will eventually.

Sanrith Descartes · Jan 11, 2022

Springbok said:
Tesla has the best electric vehicle engineers in the world, no question. It's actually kind of annoying how long it's taking the "big boys" to catch up in that department, but I suspect they will eventually.

I agree. The challenge for Musk has always been to unfuck his manufacturing before the real manufactures catch up on electric technology.

Kirun · Jan 11, 2022

I want to like the EV6 from Kia, because I'm pretty sure they're going to end production on the Stinger and use the EV6 as their new "performance" model. Problem is, they made it a fucking goddamn crossover, so it looks like 95% of all cars on the road. The hood design is fantastic, it's just everything else that screams, "I'm a mom who gave up". I want something electric for my daily commute, but I agree with

Springbok that everything is just dogshit ugly.

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