scottie1113

I have a friend in Poland who is interested in buying a used Ford, Buick, or Chevrolet. Is there a difference in taxes in cities or countries? Where is the best place to begin looking, dealers or clubs?

Does it make sense to buy a car in the US and ship it to Europe? What about import taxes?

I really need some help here.

Anything you guys can tell me will be wonderful. Thanks.

jgsmuzzy

Buying a car and shipping it is a good choice, but fraught with problems... especially in the new EC states. Buying one from Germany might be a good idea,

England has a lot of cars, but they would be expensive from an Eastern European point of view (Rip off Britain!!)

Get you mate to trawl the net for local car clubs (I think there is a Mustang club in Poland) and get the information from guys in the know.

Wombert is in Germany, he might know more than me.

Cheers

James

scottie1113

Thanks. I gave her the websites for the mustang clubs in amsterdam and germany, as well as the chevrolet and ford web sites in poland. I will try to find a mustang club in Poland.

And cheers to you!

Wombert

There should be a Mustang Club in Poland. If not, try to find information through German ones. I heard that Poland will tighten it's safety requirements etc for cars, so you might easily run into trouble. American cars often don't meet german regulations (for example, every car in Germany has to have headlights distance controls or be granted an exception by the government of the ferderal state), same might be the case in Poland.

scottie1113

Thanks Wombert. I gave my friend the German Mustang web site but I haven't found one in Poland yet. I'll keep looking.

I'm not too concerned about the safety issues yet. I have a friend in Germany with an Oldsmobile. So far he has had no problems.

Again, thanks for the reply.

jgsmuzzy

This is "mustang Centre" in Poland. It is in Polish, but seems to provide a lot of info

Poland Mustang

HTH

scottie1113

Thanks James. Do you know the actual URL for the website?

Wombert

right-click the link, select properties, et voila:

http://members.lycos.co.uk/include3/

scottie1113

Thanks.

Zastava_101

Here is how things work out when you buy car in the US and then ship it to Europe.

Car have to be paid off and can't be older than 6 years. It cost about $1,000 to ship it to Europe (from Florida or NY), and I know there are 2 types of taxes you have to pay. Each one is 20% of total value of the car.

That's info for my country, but I don't think it should be different in other European countries.

jgsmuzzy

Wow, that's steep!!

We can bring in cars any age..

Under 10 years old, we pay 10% on the value of the car and shipping

Then we pay vat on the whole lot of 17.5%

On cars over 10 years old, there is no VAT to pay

Wombert

Age doesn't matter here. To the price you paid in the U.S. you have to add another 10% duty and on top of that 16% VAT. And then there's the mods necessary to the car. Another one or two thousand Euros.

Zastava_101

Well, Serbian governmen is trying to push people to buy Yugo cars. And cars are a lot more expensive in my country than in other countries in Europe. So, about 10-15 years ago, a lot of people would buy car in some European country (mostly Germany, Switzerland, and Austria), then drove it to Serbia&Montenegro (at that time called Yugoslavia), and sell them there. One of my friend did that a lot. I remember that he bough 1983 VW Golf in Germany for 500 Marks and gave it to my dad. 3 years later we sold that car for 2,500 Marks.

A lot of people did that, that's why government changed rules. Now, if you wanna buy foreign car in foreign country ('cause its cheaper), you have a bunch of rules and taxes to pay.

jgsmuzzy

Zoran,

Is Yugo still owned by the Government? or are the gov. just trying to protect domestic businesses?
I can understand why they are doing that, but it stinks that people cannot get the car they want due to import restrictions!

Zastava_101

Its just to protect domestic business because Yugo is in deep ****.

You still can get foreign car, but it will cost you a lot more than car is actually worth.

jgsmuzzy

Right,

Have Serbia Montenegro got any plans to join the EC? If they do, they will have to get rid of those taxes and duties due to the "Freedom of movement of goods" act.

Zastava_101

They do have plans, but they just won't let us. There are too many things they want Serbia to do in order to join. I think there were some stories that Serbia might join ec by 2015 (or was it 2009).

Anyway, Serbia is still long way to joining ec.

scottie1113

Well, thanks for all the help, guys. I passed everything along to my friend, but in the end it came down to a financial issue. She bought a used VW beetle, and loves it. Oh well. As long as she's happy with it, that's fine.

Wombert

The EU is a PITA if you ask me. It's just a fat, clumsy monster that costs way too much money. I don't (and won't ever) understand why my country (and thus I as a taxpayer) has to spend billions of Euros to support orange farmers in southern Spain. Or something like that. Or why Poland received agrarian subsidies well before it joined the EC, and then bought F16 jets for a three figure million sum from the U.S. instead of some Eurofighters (and that way supporting the EU countries that build and develop it).

jgsmuzzy

I am so glad we didn't join the Euro, but I understand the subsidies issue. we pay £4 million a day to the Ec, and get £0.5 back, the new states must be rubbing their hands in glee!