Posted: Apr 14, 2012 11:34 pm
I'd agree it does depend on what you mean by "tax evasion". We're selling our house at the moment, and the young real estate agent who turned up to put up the sign and show a couple of people through was driving a very nice brand new BMW 5 series sedan, a diesel. I was amazed that a guy of maybe 25 working at a real estate office could afford such a car (they don't make that much money), but then remembered that plenty of real estate salesman (around here at least) drive exotic cars...after all, if you use it for business purposes such as taking people around to houses, it's for business purposes...and so all the running costs (and reduction in taxes at purchase time...) are a big fat tax deduction. Why would you buy a nice sensible Toyota Camry or something...?
Is it tax evasion? Not really...the government allows them to do it. However, the government probably didn't expect them to be buying cars worth up near a hundred grand and avoid the huge amount of sales tax and other charges involved in luxury car purchase in this country. Not really the persons fault for exploiting a loop hole left there buy government...they could always have made the laws say you could get the benefits, but only on a vehicle up to a cost of $40,000 say, which would be a nice large sedan here.
Is it tax evasion? Not really...the government allows them to do it. However, the government probably didn't expect them to be buying cars worth up near a hundred grand and avoid the huge amount of sales tax and other charges involved in luxury car purchase in this country. Not really the persons fault for exploiting a loop hole left there buy government...they could always have made the laws say you could get the benefits, but only on a vehicle up to a cost of $40,000 say, which would be a nice large sedan here.