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Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by zackmorris on Thursday January 18, 2018 @08:13PM (#16183245)
I noticed most of the comments in this thread were about not wanting a high tax rate of 100%. I just want to offer a counterexample where people are all for it: in Costa Rica there is a similar import tax on luxury and technology items and is roughly 50-80% on cars:

http://www.costaricatax.com/import-tax.htm

http://www.costaricatax.com/luxury-tax-cars.htm

One of the main reasons for this is that everyone wants to go to Costa Rica because it's one of the nicest places in the world. So in a very real sense their import tax is a "pay to stay" tax. As Denmark is also one of the nicest places in the world, they do this as well.

Everyone forgets that in the end, the people are the beneficiaries of these taxes by way of government services like free healthcare and education. Eventually benefits will come as universal basic income (UBI) as well.

Now for the opinion part - I find it sad that the United Stated of America no longer has any appreciable tariffs, so in a way doesn't think of itself as a really nice place to go anymore. 40 years of so-called conservative thinking on this (that government of/by/for the people is somehow the enemy) has done a great injustice to our culture and global image as a beacon of democracy. I was born in 77 so just barely remember that it didn't always used to be this way. I fear that young people today are experiencing their cultural worth being stolen and that their feeling of ineffectualness is being amplified by divisive political tactics that will never pan out. Low taxes generally cause these sorts of problems; lower taxes will make them worse. And taxes just got lower, supposedly, even though the US already pays some of the lowest taxes in the industrialized world. The very fact that the US is unlikely to raise taxes appreciably anytime in the foreseeable future does not bode well for our quality of life IMHO.

Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by vinni2 on Thursday January 18, 2018 @11:28PM (#16184154)
I used to live in Northern Denmark and I have experienced their healthcare first hand and witnessed social welfare which helped my friends and colleagues. And I still do think this is excessive tax not well justified for the following reasons:

1. I would expect a state of the art public transport in the whole country. The rail system connecting different cities in Denmark is pretty dated and slow. Even using diesel engines in some parts. Now I would expect some part of that 180% tax to be invested here. But the fact is people are often forced to drive with car due to poor public transport connectivity in many places.

2. Even electric cars are not exempt from these high taxes anymore. This eliminates the benefit of the doubt that this was for the good of the environment.

3. The high tax for cars has historical roots. Many in Denmark believe it is no longer necessary today to fund the welfare state. https://www.thelocal.dk/20151120/whats-the-deal-with-denmark...

4. These high taxes are also defeating the purpose of keeping the environment clean by creating a huge market for used really old cars which are often the worst polluters. https://mereconomics.com/2016/02/09/on-the-efficiency-of-dan...

5. Opinion: It all boils down to having free health care, free education, really good welfare system and not being able to afford a car. Other European countries like Germany seem to have worked out a model which can make all of them affordable to most people.

I can go on but got bored.

Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by ljf on Friday January 19, 2018 @02:04AM (#16184608)
Car ownership in Denmark is only marginally lower than here in the UK. And not that far behind the rest of Europe. So it obviously doesn't put off those who want a car.
Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by vinni2 on Friday January 19, 2018 @06:16AM (#16185413)
I am not saying people are not buying cars but the 180% or 150% or even 100% tax is not justified. From what I read it is now down to 85% tax which is much better. Dont know about UK my baseline for comparison is Germany (I lived there for 4 years) and I would move back to Germany any day if I can find the same job there. Cost of living, social welfare everything is a good balance between socialism and capitalism there.
Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by ljf on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:32AM (#16187472)
Why is it not justified? What you you replace it with, or cut from current government spending. Most Danish on this thread and the few I know have been in support of the tax, which I find interesting.
Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by vinni2 on Friday January 19, 2018 @11:57AM (#16187690)
If it is so critical for the welfare state why is there even a debate about cutting it? Why was it cut down to 85% from 180%? Also historically the taxes weren’t always this high and the welfare system did just fine.

None of the Danes here have given any convincing answer on why they support the higher taxation on car registrations.

Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by ljf on Saturday January 20, 2018 @03:47AM (#16192651)
I'm not saying it is critical, I'm just asking how we best cost the external impact of people owning and running cars. But as I've said in previous posts on other threads, I'm a boring lefty in favour of high taxation, and I don't expect others to share my bug government viewpoint ;)
Re:Soon, Cars in Denmark Will Only Be Taxed at 100% (2017) by vinni2 on Friday January 26, 2018 @05:20AM (#16238137)
> I'm just asking how we best cost the external impact of people owning and running cars.

I am not sure what you mean by "external impact" here. You should clarify that first before I can answer your question. Also I hope you will forgive me for not reading your previous posts on other threads!

I get that you are in favour of high taxation. I am not against taxation either. But the question is how much higher is acceptable? 200% is acceptable for you? 300%? where do you put the upper limit? How do you measure the cost of driving cars on the society and environment? was 180% by the Danish government justified in this regard? What was the rationale behind that? I haven't gotten answer to this question from any Danes here or in Danish news papers or in person after talking to many Danes while working in Denmark for 8 months.

May be it is the whole Scandinavian model to blame. Therefore, I am giving you the example of Germany where taxes on cars are significantly low but at the same time salaries (at least in the tech sector) are comparable to Scandinavia, education is free, healthcare is affordable and cost of living is one of the best in the western world.