Private car importers could be costing themselves and other buyers hundreds of euro in Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) by over-zealous checks on the Revenue Commissioners VRT calculation website. Paddy Comyn reports.
Revenue officials have confirmed they are monitoring both the queries about specific models of cars on the VRT online calculator and the actual traffic of imports to this country.
Officials are then pinpointing cars for "reclassification" as a "collectable" car. VRT is applied to imported cars as a percentage of the Open Market Selling Price (OMSP), which is calculated by the Revenue Commissioners.
One example of such a change is the much sought-after 1980s version of the BMW 3-Series. Known in BMW circles by its code E30, it was produced between 1984 and 1991, with the Cabriolet and Touring models continuing even later than that.
The E30 has always had a loyal following and interest in the car has increased dramatically of late, as it has been identified as a future classic and with many well-maintained examples residing in Britain, personal imports of the car have increased greatly and this, it seems, has attracted the attention of the VRT officers.
One recent buyer , told The Irish Times of his experience with importing an E30 Convertible.
"In November of 2005 I priced a car on the VRT website and the model I was looking at had a VRT price of about €400-odd on it. Having settled on a car in February of this year I returned to the website to notice that the model I had previously looked at was no longer available on the drop-down menu. I phoned my local VRT office to check if there had been a database error, but was told that this particular car had been 'reclassified' and they would need to check with head office to get a price.
"The new price I was given was €1,360, some three times what I had been quoted online initially."
According to a spokesman for the Revenue, the car in question - the E30 Convertible - had been removed from the website because the open market selling price of the vehicle first published on the site was "far too low".
He confirmed the VRT website is monitored to gauge particular interest in specific models.