6 ms·

Also, giving tax breaks on luxury cars means shiftig wealth from the poor to the rich.

mseebach 9y ago
Yes, rolling back the tax discount on EVs should remove the last fragment of the fig leaf that those taxes have any environmental purpose whatsoever.
- Decade 9y ago
  Cars in general are bad for the environment. The discount was about being quite a bit less bad, but EVs are still bad. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14536854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14536854
  - mseebach 9y ago
    That may be the case, but the Danish vehicle tax has not made a meaningful dent in neither car ownership nor usage.
watter 9y ago
This is why I like to remind people of Tesla's true innovation: finding government tax credits and giving consumers a way to spend them on Tesla.
- dmode 9y ago
  This comment makes no sense. Tesla doesn't find government credits and build a car accordingly. Tesla makes an electric car. Government, which represents their tax base, had decided to provide tax incentives to encourage EV sales. These are mutually exclusive. No one is stopping GM from converting their entire fleet to electric and take advantage. If this is the only innovation, it should also be relatively easy for anyone to start electric car company and start making money. I would encourage you to start one
mcv 9y ago
If it's an import tax, it only applies to cars imported from outside the EU. I don't know if Denmark has any car factories, but there are plenty of affordable cars being produced in the EU.
- pjc50 9y ago
  I had a look, Denmark only have small boutique manufacturers eg: http://www.zenvoautomotive.com/en/specs/ http://www.zenvoautomotive.com/en/specs/
  - mcv 9y ago
    It could have had a factory for a foreign brand, though if I had to guess, I would expect that they don't have one. Still, Denmark is an EU member, so imports of German cars should be free. But as I understand, it's not really an import fee but a registration fee, which probably means you also have to pay it for domestically manufactured cars.
    - Tehnix 9y ago
      >it's not really an import fee but a registration fee Indeed, it is payed even if you live in Denmark, go buy a car in Germany, drive it back to Denmark yourself, and want to use it there.
- martin_bech 9y ago
  Its not an import tax, its a registration tax, for getting danish plates etc. We have a seperate sales tax/VAT/import tax of 25%. If you import a car from inside the EU, you will pay the same taxes.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
The tax on cars is largely for environmental/societal reasons. Pollution is an expensive, damaging externality for society largely caused by cars; the infrastructure for a car culture is VERY expensive to maintain; car-dependent cities are less attractive to live in. A single-digit sales tax or registration fee does not cover these costs to society caused by car owners. Therefore, these costs must be covered by the general fund: from income, payroll, and business taxes. These all apply equally whether or not you own a car, so if you don't buy a car, you're still paying for the environmental cost of having one but not getting the benefits. Denmark has done a smart thing by placing high taxes on cars. Reasonable taxation policy helps make this decision more rational. The flat tax usually makes sense because cheap cars are likely to be low-powered sub-compacts, which have a smaller impact, while expensive luxury cars are more likely to be high-powered, heavy, large vehicles. But EVs (and hybrids, to a lesser extent) break this model. They are expensive, but environmentally friendly. It makes sense to encourage their adoption through tax breaks. That is not a shift of wealth from the poor to the rich, it's an intelligent exception in a model intended to shift costs away from all of society to the source of those costs.
- ant6n 9y ago
  > But EVs (and hybrids, to a lesser extent) break this model. They are expensive, but environmentally friendly. Not quite. EVs reduce direct pollution, but there are still a lot of negative externalities. There are obvious ones relating to the manufacture and also to then still requiring energy. But car culture itself has all sorts of issues, no matter the drive train: it encourages bad urbanism and sprawl (with large environmental impact), encourages inefficient land use via extensive parking, it taxes the infrastructure, it encourages bad health, and also some direct accidents.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    Why the downvotes? Building and maintaining big roads, bridges, parking spaces has a huge social and environmental impact compared to increasing public transportation.
    - 9y ago
mason240 9y ago
Not possible. The poor pay very little in taxes (the bottom 40% pay less than 5% of income taxes collected), and the rich pay most of them (the top 5% pay 55% of income taxes collected).
Tiktaalik 9y ago
Yep. These sort of new vehicle EV incentives are pointless hand outs to car companies and auto dealer associations, funded by the tax dollars of citizens that are often too poor to afford to buy a new car in the first place. A more effective policy at encouraging the growth of the EV sector would be a road pricing system where non-EV cars pay higher fees. This sort of policy would have the added bonus of incentivizing people into public transit and active transportation, which is ultimately better for the environment than buying an EV car.
rsync 9y ago
"Also, giving tax breaks on luxury cars means shiftig wealth from the poor to the rich." Not quite ... If you taxed poor people to subsidize luxury cars (a regressive tax) then you would indeed shift wealth from the "poor" to the "rich". However, if you tax rebate the "rich" to subsidize luxury cars you are instead shifting less wealth from rich to poor than you used to. Maybe you should or should not do these things - I'm not going to debate that here - but I think that distinction is important and interesting ...
wott 9y ago
Yes, it puzzles me that my government sponsors people who fancy changing their car for an EV up to 10000 € (!) per EV (and considering the prices of EVs, they have to be rather wealthy to afford them even with the sponsoring), while cutting welfare for any stupid reason for people who have no other income (yearly welfare being around 5000-6000€...). Giving away money worth 2 years of welfare to people who don't need money and just want to dump a car that still perfectly works sounds just crazy to me.

Yes, rolling back the tax discount on EVs should remove the last fragment of the fig leaf that those taxes have any environmental purpose whatsoever.

Decade 9y ago
Cars in general are bad for the environment. The discount was about being quite a bit less bad, but EVs are still bad. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14536854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14536854
- mseebach 9y ago
  That may be the case, but the Danish vehicle tax has not made a meaningful dent in neither car ownership nor usage.

watter 9y ago

This is why I like to remind people of Tesla's true innovation: finding government tax credits and giving consumers a way to spend them on Tesla.

dmode 9y ago
This comment makes no sense. Tesla doesn't find government credits and build a car accordingly. Tesla makes an electric car. Government, which represents their tax base, had decided to provide tax incentives to encourage EV sales. These are mutually exclusive. No one is stopping GM from converting their entire fleet to electric and take advantage. If this is the only innovation, it should also be relatively easy for anyone to start electric car company and start making money. I would encourage you to start one

mcv 9y ago

If it's an import tax, it only applies to cars imported from outside the EU. I don't know if Denmark has any car factories, but there are plenty of affordable cars being produced in the EU.

pjc50 9y ago
I had a look, Denmark only have small boutique manufacturers eg: http://www.zenvoautomotive.com/en/specs/ http://www.zenvoautomotive.com/en/specs/
- mcv 9y ago
  It could have had a factory for a foreign brand, though if I had to guess, I would expect that they don't have one. Still, Denmark is an EU member, so imports of German cars should be free. But as I understand, it's not really an import fee but a registration fee, which probably means you also have to pay it for domestically manufactured cars.
  - Tehnix 9y ago
    >it's not really an import fee but a registration fee Indeed, it is payed even if you live in Denmark, go buy a car in Germany, drive it back to Denmark yourself, and want to use it there.
martin_bech 9y ago
Its not an import tax, its a registration tax, for getting danish plates etc. We have a seperate sales tax/VAT/import tax of 25%. If you import a car from inside the EU, you will pay the same taxes.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

The tax on cars is largely for environmental/societal reasons. Pollution is an expensive, damaging externality for society largely caused by cars; the infrastructure for a car culture is VERY expensive to maintain; car-dependent cities are less attractive to live in. A single-digit sales tax or registration fee does not cover these costs to society caused by car owners. Therefore, these costs must be covered by the general fund: from income, payroll, and business taxes. These all apply equally whether or not you own a car, so if you don't buy a car, you're still paying for the environmental cost of having one but not getting the benefits. Denmark has done a smart thing by placing high taxes on cars. Reasonable taxation policy helps make this decision more rational. The flat tax usually makes sense because cheap cars are likely to be low-powered sub-compacts, which have a smaller impact, while expensive luxury cars are more likely to be high-powered, heavy, large vehicles. But EVs (and hybrids, to a lesser extent) break this model. They are expensive, but environmentally friendly. It makes sense to encourage their adoption through tax breaks. That is not a shift of wealth from the poor to the rich, it's an intelligent exception in a model intended to shift costs away from all of society to the source of those costs.

ant6n 9y ago
> But EVs (and hybrids, to a lesser extent) break this model. They are expensive, but environmentally friendly. Not quite. EVs reduce direct pollution, but there are still a lot of negative externalities. There are obvious ones relating to the manufacture and also to then still requiring energy. But car culture itself has all sorts of issues, no matter the drive train: it encourages bad urbanism and sprawl (with large environmental impact), encourages inefficient land use via extensive parking, it taxes the infrastructure, it encourages bad health, and also some direct accidents.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  Why the downvotes? Building and maintaining big roads, bridges, parking spaces has a huge social and environmental impact compared to increasing public transportation.
  - 9y ago

mason240 9y ago

Not possible. The poor pay very little in taxes (the bottom 40% pay less than 5% of income taxes collected), and the rich pay most of them (the top 5% pay 55% of income taxes collected).

Tiktaalik 9y ago

Yep. These sort of new vehicle EV incentives are pointless hand outs to car companies and auto dealer associations, funded by the tax dollars of citizens that are often too poor to afford to buy a new car in the first place. A more effective policy at encouraging the growth of the EV sector would be a road pricing system where non-EV cars pay higher fees. This sort of policy would have the added bonus of incentivizing people into public transit and active transportation, which is ultimately better for the environment than buying an EV car.

rsync 9y ago

"Also, giving tax breaks on luxury cars means shiftig wealth from the poor to the rich." Not quite ... If you taxed poor people to subsidize luxury cars (a regressive tax) then you would indeed shift wealth from the "poor" to the "rich". However, if you tax rebate the "rich" to subsidize luxury cars you are instead shifting less wealth from rich to poor than you used to. Maybe you should or should not do these things - I'm not going to debate that here - but I think that distinction is important and interesting ...

wott 9y ago

Yes, it puzzles me that my government sponsors people who fancy changing their car for an EV up to 10000 € (!) per EV (and considering the prices of EVs, they have to be rather wealthy to afford them even with the sponsoring), while cutting welfare for any stupid reason for people who have no other income (yearly welfare being around 5000-6000€...). Giving away money worth 2 years of welfare to people who don't need money and just want to dump a car that still perfectly works sounds just crazy to me.