Tax Rant
 

I never realized how much extra I would be paying in taxes because of my new c300. $500ish for title and registration back in August 2007 and now another $422 just to renew the plates for another year....dammit indiana

And that's the only tax you have to pay in the USA ?
If you think that's much, don't move to the Netherlands.

On my car there was about 12.000 Euro taxes, that's why we pay 20 till 25 % more for a car than in Germany, and i have to pay 600,00 Euro each year for "here they call it, highway taxes".... we pay 1,50/1,60 euro for 1 liter petrol because of the taxes.... So don't complain about the taxes please :D:D

I'm paying about $15000 in taxes for C220CDi!

you know us americans....we like to ***** about stupid things

FWIW $500 is for the annual renewal for registration...or if you want to put a slant to it...a road tax.

IMHO we ***** about everything...it's the american way.

we pay $4/gallon for gas while the rest of the world pays $4/liter and we still *****

Not the whole world. Look at the prices most of the oil producing countries pay. Hey, aren't we an oil producing country?

Got this from CNN:

Nation City Price in USD Regular/Gallon
Netherlands Amsterdam $6.48
Norway Oslo $6.27
Italy Milan $5.96
Denmark Copenhagen $5.93
Belgium Brussels $5.91
Sweden Stockholm $5.80
United Kingdom London $5.79
Germany Frankfurt $5.57
France Paris $5.54
Portugal Lisbon $5.35
Hungary Budapest $4.94
Luxembourg $4.82
Croatia Zagreb $4.81
Ireland Dublin $4.78
Switzerland Geneva $4.74
Spain Madrid $4.55
Japan Tokyo $4.24
Czech Republic Prague $4.19
Romania Bucharest $4.09
Andorra $4.08
Estonia Tallinn $3.62
Bulgaria Sofia $3.52
Brazil Brasilia $3.12
Cuba Havana $3.03
Taiwan Taipei $2.84
Lebanon Beirut $2.63
South Africa Johannesburg $2.62
Nicaragua Managua $2.61
Panama Panama City $2.19
Russia Moscow $2.10
Puerto Rico San Juan $1.74
Saudi Arabia Riyadh $0.91
Kuwait Kuwait City $0.78
Egypt Cairo $0.65
Nigeria Lagos $0.38
Venezuela Caracas $0.12

Anyway, in Ohio we pay a flat license plate renewal fee. I would say that we are lucky, but that is how it should be. When I lived in Minnesota I paid a license fee based on what my car was worth. I knew I wouldn't be there long, so I sold my late model German car and bought a Pontiac 6000. The redistribution of wealth fee I paid went from $400.00 per year to $15.00. I didn't want to pay more to maintain the roads that every piece of junk was traveling on just because I had a newer car.

Canada (BC) $5.32 !!! :smash:

Don't know where CNN got their figures from But the UK price is a mile out from what we are actually paying.

UK cost around £1.10 per litre. 3.75 litres to 1 US Gallon = £4.12 per US gallon
That makes it roughly $8.12 US.:eek:

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack and rehijack this thread :) I know this is OT, but oh welll

Here is a more recent list, published yesterday.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/01/news...ion=2008050112

Most expensive: US ranks 111 out of 155 countries surveyed. (45th cheapest)

ManchesterMerc, you're right - UK is around $8+ USD.

Most expensive places to buy gas
Rank Country Price/gal
1. Bosnia-Herzegovina $10.86
2. Eritrea $9.58
3. Norway $8.73
4. United Kingdom $8.38
5. Netherlands $8.37
6. Monaco $8.31
7. Iceland $8.28
8. Belgium $8.22
9. France $8.07
10. Germany $7.86
111. United States $3.45

Where gasoline is cheapest
Rank Country Price/gal
1. Venezuela 12 cents
2. Iran 40 cents
3. Saudi Arabia 45 cents
4. Libya 50 cents
5. Swaziland 54 cents
6. Qatar 73 cents
7. Bahrain 81 cents
8. Egypt 89 cents
9. Kuwait 90 cents
10. Seychelles 98 cents
45. United States $3.45

But the thing you need to factor in here is - the US is a geographically large country. $7-8 gas in a small european country is much less of a burden then $4 gas in a country where people travel and commute large distances, and where most places do not (can not) have mass transit systems.

And the world economy is impacted by the US more than the economy of any other Country.

The list changes fast.

Correct. Things mitigate that, though. I drive 400 miles a week in my daily commute, but I only live 3-4 towns away from the work-place and in a large metropolitan area that's practically next door. Our desire to live in the suburbs makes the difference. Even being 20 miles from the job is costly when everyone else does to and we participate in the daily traffic jam (twice, of course!).

Just because we're geographically large doesn't mean we travel long distances. My once-upon-a-time 110 mile commute (each way) is thankfully a thing of the past (over 1K miles a week! And that was the short version of that commute). Mostly we live within about 20-30 miles from the job.

You are correct in that the average European doesn't drive much. I've found myself in France with a car and the French I worked with depended on me doing the driving, because they didn't have a car. They used the train, they sometimes used a bus, and very frequently walked. Parking was hard because the parking lots were too small for my tastes, but most of the French didn't drive so it was fine for them.

For many Europeans, the cost of the car is prohibitive (especially VAT, luxury, and other taxes). The cost of fuel is sky-high. What many don't do, and we have always done, is just "go for a drive." It's too expensive to drive, so they take the train.

To truly reduce our gas costs, we have to stop driving as much. It's not just about better mileage vehicles, but about changing the landscape: more centralized living/work areas and better options like trains. We would rather put up with road construction (year round, 'natch) than build a better rail system. While our costs are high, we're not ready, mentally, to make that change.

The only time our geography bites us is when we take a "vacation" as a road-trip. It really is getting to be much cheaper to fly than to drive. Last year I took a fly-drive vacation to New England and while expensive, I probably wouldn't do it this year because gas is so much higher now.