How Much "Super" Tax Would You Pay For A "Super Car"?

Updated: 29 Nov 2024

Customs Duty, Supplementary Duty, VAT, Regulatory Duty- some of the very basic side costs that you gotta pay for importing a car (may vary region to region). But how much are you ready to pay for? How much Import cost would make sense?

Well, heloww! I’m from Bangladesh- one of the countries with most population density. As a report of 2016 says, 46% of total world population come from China, India & Bangladesh.

To put in perspective, London has a population density of 5,197 person/sq km, Los Angeles has 2,400 person/sq km, New York has 1,800 person/sq km, Shanghai (China) has 6,100 person/sq km, Kolkata (India) has 12,200 person/sq km.

And Dhaka (Bangladesh) has a population density of 43,500 person/sq km.

So whenever you come out on the street of Dhaka, you see this:

As a sidewalker or a corporate employee or a little business holder, it’s really painful to face such a horrible condition on the road, everyday, on a regular basis. I don’t need to say why, I guess you can feel the pain just by counting the number of vehicles on the photo. The average speed of automobile on the city is 6.4 km/h (Ouch!), and it’s estimated that the average speed will go down to 4.7 km/h within 2035 without substantial public transport investment.

So the government has taken an innovative (!!) idea of discouraging people from buying personal automobiles by putting on a weird Import duty and tax system for importing vehicles. I just can’t stop myself from sharing with you, fellas….

If you actually have read the Import Duty list, then you know “Car enthusiasm” & “Buying the dream car” are funny quotes in my country. The only thing government wants to teach us:

A brand new BMW 5 series will cost you roughly 190,000 US dollar (more or less). A recondition BMW sedan will cost you 63,000 US dollar, at least. A second-hand Toyota GT86 costs 50,000 US dollar (more or less). Nissan GT-R will cost 404,000-506,000 US dollar. I don’t dare to show more…

The situation of car-price-tagging is pretty much HORRIBLE. People are buying GT86 with the cost of a Mustang, buying Mercedes with the cost of a Lamborghini, buying a Ferrari with the cost of a Veyron. And illegal import is pretty common (obviously!). But I don’t wanna talk about that, i hope you already understand the reason.

Toyota is the mostly common and reliable personal automobile supplier in Bangladesh. For a third world country, that is obvious. But the overwhelming import cost has made it impossible to buy a car for any middle-middle class family, let alone for any petrol-head.

MEET THE KING OF THE STREET- "RICKSHAW" or "THREE WHEELER" or "TUK TUK"

Dhaka City is the center of all the business and corporate scenarios of Bangladesh with over 18 Million people fighting for space. For such a huge crowd, 1.1 Million Rickshaws isn’t yet enough to cover. Nothing can give a proper idea of the traffic situation over here. Streets are barely enough to provide space to all of the humanly-driven & engine vehicles. To control chaos, government has put on enormous amount of Import Duty; instantly the dream of buying a “Super Car” is killed by “Super” Tax.

But I can assure, nothing is comparable to the joyride of Rickshaw! You can never, ever get as much adventure and fresh air as Rickshaw ride on your brand-new, glossy, comfy Rolls Royce Drophead. No one misses the chance to be here & get a joyful ride…

Aside from that, it is a major problem for the city traffic and car owners. I’m a car freak & I can’t help myself to get rid of the over-price-tag situation. I want your suggestion guys. What do you think? Is there any other way to solve the traffic problem? Or should we accept it & pay 833% Import Duty for a super car?

Let me finish with a funny question. With the base price of $2.6 million, what would be the total cost of a Bugatti Chiron with 833% Import Duty? Do the math Yourself.

Comments

So a Chiron would cost a very overpriced 21.658 million

Heck ya!

Is there less crowded parts of the country? Would owning a car make sense outside of the city?

Traffic is pretty much same at any city. Highways are better, but Rickshaw and 3-wheel autos still create barrier to gain speed.

At last found a post about my country. Cheers maybe?

Oh wow! I thought we had big car taxes here in Finland but not this big

And i thought Pakistan has the most pathetic duty system in the world..

This kind of thing makes me glad that my parents moved from Singapore when I was a baby because the taxes there are also insane (regular cars cost about USD $100k; a GT-R is about $450k). Again, it’s because the population density is too high - about 8,000/sqkm (it would be closer to 10k if it wasn’t for land reclaimation programmes). However, the tax system (that requires you to bid for the right to own a car for 10 years amongst other hurdles) imposes a greater percentage in total on cheap cars than expensive ones, so you see far more expensive cars (when I was there in August, I would see about 2 supercars a day - I saw a Porsche 918 on two occasions, probably the same one).

Anyway, I have a solution: Ultima Evolution Coupe 1020. Costs £95k, and since it’s a kit car, you can import dissassembled you “only” have to pay 152% tax, meaning it won’t be much more expensive than that new 5-series.

Get rid of buses and imagine how many supercars could fill the space.
A city like London, is constantly congested due to narrow roads, over deployment of roundabouts, poor traffic management, roadworks and accidents. If you ever try to hit the roundabout at trafalgar square, by the time you get a green light you cant move because 3 buses are blocking your path and they are held at a red light. Its pretty much the same at any junction in london, buses and trucks blocking 2 or 3 lanes of traffic. And you are charged £11.50 for the privelege. Ban the trucks and buses!
What was the topic of this post again?

Like I said, people density is way too high in Dhaka compare to London or any other major city around the globe. Blocking buses mean blocking massive amount of people from movement- that won’t be a healthy decision. It might be true that some people buying one car instead of 4 or 5 because of the insane tax, but it doesn’t seem to be helping to resolve traffic problem that much.

Wow… that’s terrible, honestly, the best move for a car guy is to move out of Singapore if it’s that much. The money you need to import a cool car is probably enough to buy that cool car in a different country and have money leftover to get an apartment