Luxury Car Tax to Increase in Budget

[cob115]

Originally Posted by LSTerritoryGhia

What about the average family man who wants to buy a decent car( maybe he doesnt drink or smoke, just wants a nice car)? Where does this leave him? As far as im concerned the Luxury limit should be higher, like 75 - 80 kay, i dont think some of the cars that fall into the 57 kay bracket are really that luxury...

If the governments really that concerned why not up the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol to slow up the lower end of the economy wasting their hard earned cash on this crap that costs us thousands in sickness etc.

The other point id like to raise is luxury car tax on aussie built cars?? If we wanna support the economy and the hands that feed us why not abolish luxury tax on these cars??

Neways i can see bad times ahead for alot of us..

Frigen spot on there mate,if you want to work hard to get a nice car4get it now,err well if you do these idots will slam you more tax : thanks Krudd

[SpoolMan]

Guy's political threads are not welcome here at AFF there are plenty of other places you can talk politics, while there is some leniency in your posts straight political comments will be removed.
Now back to luxury car tax.

Starts at $57,000 will go up $500, what is the average ''Joe'' spending on a car, is an extra $500+ to much on a F6 or base GT.
How many people will it effect..

[FPV8U]

Originally Posted by SpoolMan

Guy's political threads are not welcome here at AFF there are plenty of other places you can talk politics, while there is some leniency in your posts straight political comments will be removed.
Now back to luxury car tax.

Starts at $57,000 will go up $500, what is the average ''Joe'' spending on a car, is an extra $500+ to much on a F6 or base GT.
How many people will it effect..

Sorry Mark, honestly forgot :togo:

[ltd]

Originally Posted by SpoolMan

Guy's political threads are not welcome here at AFF there are plenty of other places you can talk politics, while there is some leniency in your posts straight political comments will be removed.
Now back to luxury car tax.

Starts at $57,000 will go up $500, what is the average ''Joe'' spending on a car, is an extra $500+ to much on a F6 or base GT.
How many people will it effect..

With business confidence the lowest it has been in the last 13 years I suspect it is just a tax grab. Not too many companies will be looking to upgrade and the other companies will be more in the market for the fleet type cars that escape this tax bracket.
It could potentially hurt the segment as perception is also often worse than reality.

[GTpilot]

The tax increase is not really that much in the grand sceme of things, whats a extra $550 on a 57k car, I do however believe they should make Aussie built cars exempt. Might sway some of those mid range buyers to buy Australian instead of imported.

[mik]

personally i don`t think all life will end because of the luxo car tax, those that cant afford it will buy something cheaper.........or not, i hear a padlock clicking

[lostdude]

I think this really is just a political stunt with labour trying to retain voter confidence due to high inflation and interest rate costs, at the end of the day they need to be seen to be proactive and if you consider the amount of population this will affect and the costs difference between 25% and 33% its not that great.

more votes = ****ing off the least amount of people

[ZA-289]

Its another stupid tax for the sake of Taxing, RTDs.... now cars, whats next?

The only way the governenment thinks they can fix anything is with a tax!

[Buddy 1]

Originally Posted by LSTerritoryGhia

What about the average family man who wants to buy a decent car( maybe he doesnt drink or smoke, just wants a nice car)? Where does this leave him? As far as im concerned the Luxury limit should be higher, like 75 - 80 kay, i dont think some of the cars that fall into the 57 kay bracket are really that luxury...

If the governments really that concerned why not up the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol to slow up the lower end of the economy wasting their hard earned cash on this crap that costs us thousands in sickness etc.

The other point id like to raise is luxury car tax on aussie built cars?? If we wanna support the economy and the hands that feed us why not abolish luxury tax on these cars??

Neways i can see bad times ahead for alot of us..

100% Spot on with all your Points

I could not have put it Better myself so I wont, Well Done :sm_headba

[Smoke Pursuit]

Also forgot to mention that this wont slow down spending.. If someone can afford to spend 57 kay + on a car an extra 8% tax on top of the 57 isnt going to stop them doing it... Most people that can convince themselves that a luxury car is worthwhile aren't that concerned about money!! Its all about revenue raising and hurting the high end people, to pay for the low end that don't want to work, or those that are in the lower paid brackets that waste their cash on cigarettes, alcohol, dvds and Mcdonalds, see the trend?


Lucky utes dont have LCT!

[Wally]

Won't hurt the typical purchaser of these cars, If anything it will cause a flow to locally built cars which will enable Ford/Holden to make even more optioned vehicles. The challenge for Ford/Holden is to provide a differentiated product to attract the new demographic e.g Lexus/Toyota

[vanman_75]

they should give me my gross pay and tax what they like on purchases ,its just a grab with no affect to me . couple hundred bucks .... just another friday night at the pub really . the luxury threshold has to go up soon as a base falcodore is getting close with a few options ?

[TURBOTAXI]

Originally Posted by LSTerritoryGhia

What about the average family man who wants to buy a decent car( maybe he doesnt drink or smoke, just wants a nice car)? Where does this leave him? As far as im concerned the Luxury limit should be higher, like 75 - 80 kay, i dont think some of the cars that fall into the 57 kay bracket are really that luxury...

If the governments really that concerned why not up the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol to slow up the lower end of the economy wasting their hard earned cash on this crap that costs us thousands in sickness etc.

The other point id like to raise is luxury car tax on aussie built cars?? If we wanna support the economy and the hands that feed us why not abolish luxury tax on these cars??

Neways i can see bad times ahead for alot of us..

OK I will try to keep this around the tax.

Agreed - Especially regarding Australian Built cars. People who have large disposable income and spend money drive the local economy, they buy goods and services that mean regular income for many of us. I dont agree with this application of tax, and I suspect this is a bit of an indicator of what to expect in the future.

$57k is way too low an XR6T with options will give this a nudge - in my book that is not a luxury car.

It might be controversial to say but a tax based on engine size would make more sense to me (even though big engines are taxed through petrol) I think it was deceptive to introduce post election.

What is next? a car allownce for low income earners?

[sleekism]

Originally Posted by cob115

wayn Swans first buget : ,is the first buget of pain for all of us
,Labour have no idea ,hang on let me refrase that ,no friggen idea how to run a buget! or how to run a country, but they are experts at apearing to be doing some thing
,apearing to be in it for the little guy
i remember Whitlam idiot : Hawk : keeting : ,intrest rates : , good will, us againts them all of the spin yeh yeh ,
Oh i allso remember being out of work and a lot worse,
sorry to get all upset i just remember what it was like ,to the people who havnt been there
Get ready history repeats its self when it comes to labour

I'm just glad that moron Howard is out of power. 11 years of riding off Keating reforms. It wasn't enough that he he had the record for highest interest rates and highest inflation when he was treasurer with interst rates hitting 21% in April 1982 and inflation 12.5% in September 1982 but he had to repeat his total lack of intelligence when he became prime minister.

While we're here whinging about a small increase in taxes we are suffering right now from Howards disasterous free trade agreement with Thailand which is eating our local carmakers alive.

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mell...257442000967B4

Industry minister to broker fairer FTAs after concern over Thailand trade imbalance

By JAMES STANFORD 7 May 2008


THE Rudd government will not make the same mistakes as the previous Howard government when it comes to negotiating future free-trade agreements and protecting the interests of Australian car manufacturers, according to federal industry minister Kim Carr.

Speaking exclusively to GoAuto in Melbourne last week, Senator Carr moved to assure the Australian automotive industry that the federal Labor government would learn from the 2005 free-trade deal with Thailand, which he acknowledged was a cause for concern among local car-makers and had resulted in a one-way flow of vehicles from the South-East Asian manufacturing hub to Australia.

“I think it is fair to say that there are some concerns, particularly in automotive, about the relationship between the Thai government assistance programs and the operations of the free-trade agreement, particularly the issues in regard to excise,” Senator Carr told GoAuto.

“While there has been an exponential growth of imports from Thailand, we have no measurable export of motor vehicles to Thailand.

“Passenger vehicles imported from Thailand since the agreement was signed in 2002 have increased by 356 per cent, whereas we have no recognisable exports to Thailand.”

Senator Carr said the federal government was committed to ensuring that future free-trade negotiations produced “agreements that do allow for proper access (for Australian manufacturers)”. He pointed to non-tariff barriers as issues that would need to be considered in future agreements.

Senator Carr’s comments come as the Rudd Government embarks on a series of new free-trade negotiations in the Middle East and Asia – including China – and at a time when former Victorian premier Steve Bracks is conducting a review of the Australian automotive industry.

Thailand is now the second-largest exporter of vehicles to Australia – second only to Japan – and shipped 155,000 cars here last year, up from just over 103,000 in 2006.

Figures released this week from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries’ VFACTS statisticians also revealed that a Thai-built vehicle – the Toyota HiLux – was Australia’s biggest-selling vehicle last month. This was the first time a duty-free imported vehicle had taken the honour.

From top: Ford Verve concept a.k.a. the 2009 Thai-built Fiesta, Mitsubishi Triton exports from Thailand, Holden FE exports to Thailand c.1959.

In response to the Thai free-trade situation, Ford Australia president Bill Osborne told GoAuto last week that the Thai government had violated the spirit of the agreement by increasing taxes on the type of cars Australia produces soon after the deal was signed. He described such barriers as “archaic”.

Ford Australia had moved to export the Victorian-built Territory SUV to Thailand after the free-trade deal was signed, but less than 30 cars were shipped before the plan was abandoned.

A change in tax structure made after the free-trade deal was signed meant the excise payable on a vehicle such as the Territory in Thailand changed from a standard 29 per cent to 50 per cent, owing to the fact that it has a large-capacity engine.

At the same time, the excise payable on the rival Toyota Fortuna SUV, which is locally built, dropped to 15 per cent. Holden also sold a small batch of VZ Commodores into Thailand, but the export program also wound up.

Senator Carr said the government was concerned with the situation between Australia and Thailand car-makers and would work to ensure a better deal with other countries, taking into account non-tariff barriers. “The government is concerned that the free-trade agreements take more account of these issues,” he said.

“That is not the only area of concern to the Australian automotive industry; there are a number of areas in the Asia-Pacific region that concern the industry.”

With a number of free-trade deals under consideration, including a controversial agreement with China – a country which will next year embark on its first major automotive push into Australia via Chery Automobile – and with Japan, Senator Carr moved to reassure the industry that its concerns would be considered.

“I think that in regard to China it will be important that there is a comprehensive arrangement and that the access issues are able to be dealt with in an equally comprehensive way,” he said.

Mr Osborne told GoAuto that Ford was open to free-trade agreements as long as they “open up new market opportunities, with moderate risk to our domestic industry”.

He described non-tariff barriers as pervasive and said that unless they were tackled “any agreements to reduce tariffs may be little more than of academic interest”.

Mr Osborne said that in future negotiations the federal government should protect the Australian industry against non-tariff barriers such as those put in place by the Thai government.

“Obviously the excise tax in Thailand caught us all by surprise,” he told GoAuto. “What they did was essentially apply an excise tax on vehicles of larger size so it disproportionately affected the (Australian) domestic industry,” he said.

“From our standpoint, this is clearly a violation of the spirit of any bi-lateral free-trade agreement.”

Mr Osborne said future free-trade agreements must involve some form of dispute resolution mechanism to maintain fair trade and suggested that tariffs could even be re-introduced if the trade partner was not abiding by the spirit of the agreement.

“The part of the strategy that we think needs to be advocated by the government is to make sure that a dispute resolution mechanism is in place that will prevent prolonged unfair trade practices,” he said.

“If you identify a non-tariff barrier, the tariffs come back up until that resolution is fulfilled.”

Mr Osborne said it was important that the federal government be aware of the measures a country could introduce to shelter its own automotive producers.

“It is important that some of the policy makers understand some of the arcane mechanisms that some countries use to restrict trade. That’s why a dispute resolution mechanism is so important. You can’t possibly know ‘a priori’ all the particular barriers any particular nation would raise,” he said.

“For example, at one point in time it came to our attention in South Korea that purchases of foreign vehicles were subject to income tax audits. You would never see that in any trade agreement, so you need to dig very closely into the policy of your trade partners to understand how arcane some of the mechanisms are.”

Senator Carr was careful not to criticise the Howard government’s handling of the still-active free-trade agreement with Thailand, but said his government would learn from it.

“There is no point in crying over spilt milk. These agreements have been signed. It is a question of any new agreements – learn from past experience,” he said. Senator Carr also said the Rudd Government was actively pursuing new agreements in the Middle East and Asia that would open up access to new markets.

“We are in the business of encouraging access to markets particularly in the Gulf, to pursue free-trade agreements with Gulf states, we are currently engaged in conversations with China and Japan, so there are a range of issues that are currently being pursued and we will obviously explore those,” he said.

“Our fundamental approach is to encourage a multilateral approach with Doha (free-trade agreements), and where there are bi-lateral discussions to learn from experiences that we have picked up from other areas.”

The representative of the Australian vehicle importers’ group, Lindsay Smalley, who is also the senior director of Honda Australia – itself a major vehicle importer from Thailand – defended the country’s vehicle tax structure on ABC radio last month.

“What we see in Thailand is a government strongly committed to the best possible environmental outcomes – certainly making it more difficult in the marketplace for people to own large, heavy fuel consumption vehicles,” Mr Smalley said.

“The types of cars that we manufacture in Australia don’t generally fit into that marketplace.”

[Sam_Boss260]

Agree with most of the sentiments here.

Without trying to talk politics, I think we are getting ready for some hard times with this new government.

As for the luxury tax..... well I don't smoke, don't drink (much) and don't gamble. I have 2 kids and try and work my ring off to make a half decent wage to provide for them. So yes, as we work hard, we like to enjoy our spoils or reward ourselves with nice things, which include nicer cars. So is a Terriroty Ghia really a luxury car? Or a GT? I wouldn't have thought so. So by trying to work hard to obtain the nicer thhings we get penalised. The LCT should be $100k, simple.

And they should be looking at some smarter ways to slow the economy....not half brained ideas....

[dom_105]

Nice to see the Commonwealth Government supporting the local car industry by using it's powers to make locally produced cars more price competitive against imported cars in the marketplace.

Oh, wait...

[Yellow_Festiva]

Well, one hand takes and the other receives. The medicare levy thresh hold has gone from 50k to 100k.

We have had it pretty good, taxes suck big time BUT they are there to try and maintain a balance in the economy, along with interest rates. I'm waiting a bit longer before I make a decision regarding the new government.

Reagrding the car taxes, it is not a large amount of money for what people are paying as a whole for the car. Agreed that 57k is way to low, and needs to be bumped up to at least 65 grand.

As to protecting the local car industry... I asked my Korean mate why 99% of the cars in Korea are Hyundai, Kia, Daewoo and Ssangyoung. Simple, the government pretty much taxes imported cars out of the market... you want a nice imported car there it's going to be a Beemer or a Merc...

[xy500]

alright, for everyone on of you who is complaining about having to pay another 6000 on your 60 thousand dollar car....
suck it up, be a man, and buy a cheaper car, it won't kill you! if you can afford to buy a car in excess of 60 thousand dollars, i think you have forgottten that makes you among the richest 4 or 5 percent of people in the world, so next time you want to cry about paying a few extra bucks for your NEEDLESS luxuries, take a sip of perspective!
:

[ED Classic]

Originally Posted by Stav

Times are tough!!! With inflation spiralling out of control and the reserve banks going nuts with monetary policy to slow the growth ,interest rates have risen hurting the average family man on the street. This accounts for very large sector of the community.I think the tax is an extra way of slowing the excessive spendings down to get more control over the economy. While no new taxes are good its about time the upper income bracket shared the pain.Its not facing bankruptcy like home owners in any case.Its a case of they are reinning in the big spending which is making this country an unnaffordable place. The net result will be a better economys and a move towards more affordable homes.

It actually adds to inflation, with 1k-3k extra being spent on every car over 57k. Thats more consumer spending as very very few people will not buy a 57k+ car because of it but just spend and sometimes borrow more.

As for more affordable homes...Yeah wishfull thinking....The more new people that come into the buying market due to government help the more prices will rise and the handout is negated or surpassed.

[Redrum]

$57000 is hardly a luxury car these days, surely the Government must realize this and raise it to more realistic levels. I cannot comment much further as it would become way too political..........

[JAZSXY]

All governments around the world follow a simple principle.

For every decrease somewhere in tax, there should be an increase somewhere else.

[56L]

Originally Posted by cob115

Cheers eb2monty
iv become very concerned when it comes to labours spin of looking after people
When i was a young wipper snapper(not to long ago) well may be 20 or so years ago : , i was all 4what they said ,but after seeing a few labour prime minsters and living through it
Eeegad !!ugly very ugly

history will repet its self

yes how true,i think the main problem is that majority of the current labour voters werent in the work force the last time a labour government totally destroyed our country,i can see things going real pear shaped real quick

[Romulus]

Brent, ltd and LSTerritoryGhia have pretty much summed up my point of view of the LCT. An 8% increase will have no affect on inflation in the grand scheme of things - it's a simple money grab. I believe it's to do with filling the void of 1/2 million Australians dumping their private health insurance now the Federal Government has increased the Medicare thresholds.

Personally, I find Wayne Swan's comments insulting. He's in no position to determine if I can afford an increase in LCT because I can afford to buy a G6ET or a Territory Ghia. I simply don't want to pay an extra $500-$1000 in tax.

Class envy here we come!

If the government was really serious about tackling inflation the baby bonus should be reverse means tested i.e. those earning less than $50k should be ineligible for it.

[Lumpen Proletariat]

Any body stop to consider the fact that for many people in Australia any new car would be considered a luxury?

A great start for the razor gang would be getting rid of the new-age socialist welfare schemes...you know, private school subsidies, private healthcare rebates, government support of commercial interest groups (mineral councils, business councils, chambers of commerce etc)

Old saying about Australia, 'Socialism stops at the farm gate'...well it seems now days with the shift towards Urban population that perhaps 'Socialism stops at *your private for profit yet still taxpayer subsidised business/school/hospital* gate' is more apt...



Lumpy

[ILLaViTaR]

Originally Posted by Stav

Times are tough!!! With inflation spiralling out of control and the reserve banks going nuts with monetary policy to slow the growth ,interest rates have risen hurting the average family man on the street. This accounts for very large sector of the community.I think the tax is an extra way of slowing the excessive spendings down to get more control over the economy. While no new taxes are good its about time the upper income bracket shared the pain.Its not facing bankruptcy like home owners in any case.Its a case of they are reinning in the big spending which is making this country an unnaffordable place. The net result will be a better economys and a move towards more affordable homes.

That's exactly what I thought as soon as I read this.

[SpoolMan]

Despite my warning at post 32 most ignored.


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