Flood of imported wrecks drives Finance Ministry to consider car tax changes

The Finance Ministry is said to be considering replacing high excise taxes on cars, meant to slow massive imports of used cars, with a sliding-scale registration tax dependent on engine capacity. Since Poland's EU accession, the number of used cars imported from the EU has been simply astounding - 108,300 cars in July alone, compared with 16,300 in the entire January-April period. Currently the main weapon used to slow the influx of junk automobiles is the excise tax, which is based on the value of imported car. However, with importers reporting values lower than the actual ones and importing mostly old cars in poor condition, the tax base is not large. It is also rumored, that the EU is unhappy about imposing excise taxes on cars. Therefore, a registration tax is being considered which would not be charged according to value but on engine size. The European Commission is also suggesting tying-in the registration tax with a compliance on emission standards, which would penalize older cars and discourage imports of wrecks. (Puls Biznesu, p.5) T.J.