Purchase tax on new motorcycles

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Eamonn Townsend

Purchase tax on new motorcycles

Post by Eamonn Townsend »

Two victories for Swedish riders!

At the end of September the Swedish government launched their budget for next year. It indicates two favourable measures for motorcyclists. If the Parliament endorse them, these measures will eradicate the high purshase taxes currently imposed on new motorcycles, there will be no increase of the annual tax on motorcycles with 900%. A rise will probably come but within acceptable limits and not assimilated to cars as the earlier proposal.

These are unfair taxation issues that SMC has been working on for some years.

* National type-approval

Sweden was the only country in Europe that had a period of two years to implement the directive to harmonise the type-approval for new motorcycles (97/24).

This means that from 17th June 2001 there will be a ban on sales of all bikes type-approved under the national requirements. For the rest of Europe the deadline for national compliance is 17th June 2003. The reason for the early implementation in Sweden is the lack of emission limits in the national regulations.

SMC worked on this issue with McRF (Swedish Industry association) and two members of the Parliament in order to postpone the deadline to 2003 instead of 2001, making it the same as the rest of Europe. If the deadline is to be 2001, the Swedish motorcycle market will decrease dramatically, with no comparison to the rest of Europe. Our complaints were based on the argument that this was an obstacle to the free trade in the European Union. The politicians wrote in these terms to the Minister of Environment and the Minister of Communication. In a very short time the Parliament decided to change the transition period to four years, like the rest of Europe. The change will come into force on 1st November 2000.

*SMC is the Swedish Motorcyclists' organisation member of FEMA

Maria Nordqvist,SMCBox 318, 792 25 MORA, SWEDEN, Phone: 44 250 395 09
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