Dub13
17-02-2008, 12:12 PM
Taken from todays McWilliams article in the Sunday Business Post (http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/wholestory.aspx-qqqt=DAVID+McWilliams-qqqs=commentandanalysis-qqqsectionid=3-qqqc=5.2.0.0-qqqn=1-qqqx=1.asp)
"Traipse over to Britain. You find your dream car for, let’s say, £18,000.You bring it back to Ireland. You are then confronted with the first tax - VRT. So already the state is bending the rules.
Resigned, you are then prepared to pay the tax on the euro value of the sterling cost of the car. So the first rule of the Treaty of Rome is broken the minute you get off the boat at Dun Laoghaire, because any tax on any good at the point of entry contravenes the original Treaty of Rome.
But worse is to come. The Revenue then judge that it’s not the cost of the car in Britain that counts for the tax, it is some Orwellian-sounding levy called the ‘‘open market selling price’’. The Revenue, in an approach which protects Irish car dealers, squeeze money out of the beleaguered Irish motorist with another, extra tax.
They calculate the difference between what the car cost in the free, unfettered market of Britain and what it might cost here in the protected, sewn-up kleptocracy that is Ireland and then slap another totally unjustified tax on top of the original totally unjustified tax.
If you want to see how this shameless infringement of EU law works, check out https://www.ros.ie/VRTEnquiryServlet/ (https://www.ros.ie/VRTEnquiryServlet/) showCarCalculator. Rather than enhance competition, our government smothers it. The motorist is being penalised twice to protect Irish car dealers who have being making a fortune in recent years by selling overpriced cars. The state, therefore, is not only breaking the rules of the EU but, more egregiously, is protecting an industry here which is actually doing nothing.
Today we have the ludicrous spectacle of our government urging us to vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty.
I’m sure there are good enough reasons for this, but how can we trust the government on one European treaty if they are prepared to tear up their obligations on another? They want us to vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty, even though they ignore the basic founding principles upon which the EU was constructed.
Until the iniquitous VRT scam is scrapped, we should argue that, on the basis of being good Europeans, we can’t vote for the Lisbon Treaty because it is supported by a government that is not European enough."
"Traipse over to Britain. You find your dream car for, let’s say, £18,000.You bring it back to Ireland. You are then confronted with the first tax - VRT. So already the state is bending the rules.
Resigned, you are then prepared to pay the tax on the euro value of the sterling cost of the car. So the first rule of the Treaty of Rome is broken the minute you get off the boat at Dun Laoghaire, because any tax on any good at the point of entry contravenes the original Treaty of Rome.
But worse is to come. The Revenue then judge that it’s not the cost of the car in Britain that counts for the tax, it is some Orwellian-sounding levy called the ‘‘open market selling price’’. The Revenue, in an approach which protects Irish car dealers, squeeze money out of the beleaguered Irish motorist with another, extra tax.
They calculate the difference between what the car cost in the free, unfettered market of Britain and what it might cost here in the protected, sewn-up kleptocracy that is Ireland and then slap another totally unjustified tax on top of the original totally unjustified tax.
If you want to see how this shameless infringement of EU law works, check out https://www.ros.ie/VRTEnquiryServlet/ (https://www.ros.ie/VRTEnquiryServlet/) showCarCalculator. Rather than enhance competition, our government smothers it. The motorist is being penalised twice to protect Irish car dealers who have being making a fortune in recent years by selling overpriced cars. The state, therefore, is not only breaking the rules of the EU but, more egregiously, is protecting an industry here which is actually doing nothing.
Today we have the ludicrous spectacle of our government urging us to vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty.
I’m sure there are good enough reasons for this, but how can we trust the government on one European treaty if they are prepared to tear up their obligations on another? They want us to vote Yes to the Lisbon Treaty, even though they ignore the basic founding principles upon which the EU was constructed.
Until the iniquitous VRT scam is scrapped, we should argue that, on the basis of being good Europeans, we can’t vote for the Lisbon Treaty because it is supported by a government that is not European enough."