Frustrations of living in a country where car prices are ridiculous!

People who live in countries such as US, UAE, Great Britain, Germany, Japan and New Zealand enjoy cars as and when they wish because cars are just cheap! However in many other countries that slap ridiculous amounts of tax on cars the car lovers all suffer. All moan and groan about having to fork out substantially more than they should for cars. Countries such as Singapore where land area is very limited it is understandable why the Govt would slap heavy taxes on the cars as a means to control car population if not the country will juts become one massive car park.

Apart from Singapore countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil and Vietnam all slap massive taxes on cars often reaching as much as 300% making a simple car cost that would cost US$10,000 in US to well over US$30,000. To cap it all off the roads in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam are not exactly top notch. Even if the person had sufficient money to buy a nice sports car the road conditions would make it frustrating to drive on. Many of these countries have pot hole ridden roads and massive traffic problems. Public transportation is not efficient leading to many people needing to buy a car or motorcycle for transportation.

To top this all off race track facilities are also limited in these countries compared to those where cars are cheap. Japan, US, Germany and Great Britain has numerous race tracks scattered all over the country making it easy to get access to track driving. This in turn would push the motorsport industry forward as well as help develop the motoring industry as a whole.

The taxes collected from car sales have become such a huge tax revenue earner that these countries find it hard to do away with import taxes on cars. Malaysia for one has been postponing the call to reduce import taxes on cars for decades. Collecting over $2 billion annually is significant enough to justify continuing the imposition of this tax.  To make matters worse some even introduce Excise duty which typically is considered to be a form of tax on controlled goods such as cigarettes, liquor or some restricted item. The excise duty is just a way for the Govt to further increase their tax revenue through car sales.