Used car importers to face higher duties and stricter emission requirements

Higher excise duties on used cars imported into Poland will come into force at the beginning of January. The new tax rate will be either 6% or 15%, dep ending on whether the car's engine capacity is less or greater than two lit ers. For cars that are more than a year old, the duty will increase by an a dditional 6.4% for each year of its age, so that a three-year-old vehicle w ill incur duty of 25.2%. Importers are also likely to face more stringent d emands on cars' exhaust gas emissions, if recommendations by a government-a ppointed committee are accepted by parliament. Over the past three years the number of used cars brought into Poland has risen significantly. Last year 214,000 cars, a third of all those that were newly-registered, came from ab road. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 26) J.K.