Leu Marholin: Authorities play fool

Seeing whether the car tax goes in line with the Constitution is mocking at common sense.

This is how an economist Leu Marholin commented on the statement by the chairman of the Constitutional court of Belarus Piotr Miklashevich on the conformity of the introduction of the car tax to constitutional norms, ucpb.org reports.

“No one doubted that the Constitution permitted introducing taxes, - Leu Marholin said. – Moreover, it directly provides for that. It is just that Constitutional norms should not be abused. All the problems in the economy, caused by incompetent management, should not be put on citizens’ shoulders.

Apart from that, if you do introduce a tax, it should be made as fair as possible. When the country’s leadership compares the price of a car with the amount of the tax, they, as people say, play a fool. A car is bought once, while the tax is paid throughout life. If I do not have money for gasoline, my car will be simply kept in a garage and wait for better times. But the tax will still have to be paid, since otherwise you will not be able to drive it in case you need to”.

We would remind that the tolling mechanism of the state duty provides for its independent payment by organizations and citizens by the time of a regular state vehicle checkup, which will require the fee’s payment document to be passed along with other documents. Tax benefits in the case of the car fee are minimal and are only foreseen for special vehicles intended to be used by the disabled, special vehicles of the Ministry for Emergency, ambulances, public transport.

The tax rate is linked to the weight of the vehicle and depends on whether it belongs to a natural or legal person. The absolute majority of cars in our roads fall into the category of between 1 and 2 tons. Their owners will have to pay 5 basic units (currently – 650 thousand roubles).

The payment of the state fee is expected to bring 1.6 trillion roubles in 2014.