One of the most hated taxes in Denmark should only have been here temporarily for six months. The registration fee is now 100 years old.
In recent years, the state has earned less and less from motorists, as political agreements almost keep electric cars free of the registration tax.
But for the past 100 years, the tax has nevertheless been a profitable billion-dollar business for the state, which otherwise promised that it would only be temporary. That was way back in six months of 1924.
In connection with a conference on 10 September, Mobility Denmark (formerly De Danske Bilimportorer, ed.) marks the hated law with a historical retrospective and an overview of the current political, economic and practical consequences of the law.
Right now, motorists pay up to 150 percent in registration tax. The rate was lowered 9 years ago. It happened in connection with the finance law negotiations in 2015. Before then, the rate was 180 percent.
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At the time – i.e. in 2015/2016 – the reduction meant that an average family car became DKK 20,000 cheaper.
And although it is expensive to both register and own a car in Denmark, there are actually places in the world where it is even more expensive. In Singapore, for example. Here, motorists must pay for something called a Certificate of Ownership.
The small city-state introduced the system in 1990 to regulate the amount of cars on the roads. The certificate is valid for 10 years at a time, but also costs 106,000 dollars for a car as ordinary as a Toyota Camry.
According to the newspaper The Guardian , this means that the average Toyota model costs 183,000 dollars to register. The amount corresponds to 1.2 million Danish kroner. In Denmark, a Camry normally costs from DKK 380,000. Or it did – because the importer no longer has it on the program.
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