Australia doesn’t tariff Chinese car imports, on account of no longer having any car industry of our own to defend.

That said we do still have a hefty “luxury car tax” for anything over $80k, which is a hangover from when there was an industry here. The government aren’t going to lift that any time soon.

Its current function is to select for expensive trucks over expensive sedans, because trucks are “commercial” and exempt, making our roads less safe overall. Thanks government.

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mnsc 7 hours ago | parent [-]

So you are saying that there's a widespread problem with people looking to buy a car for $100k but realizing there's a $6k tax they go, "I can't afford that" and instead buy a unsafe truck?

	▲	hirsto 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Taxes change purchase behaviour. The luxury car tax is a tax on personal vehicles so they're saying its pushing people towards buying via business
	▲	Nursie 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		It certainly forms part of the picture. Another part of the picture is that you can more often get away with buying a truck “for business” if you’re a small business-person, regardless of whether it actually ends up being used for that. And by ‘unsafe’ I mean for pedestrians and they contribute to the vehicle-size arms race on the roads, they’re generally very safe for the occupants.
	▲	nujabe 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Seems like the luxury tax is 33%..