Tesla Motors suspected in trying to illegally defraud Danish government EV tax hike

*yawn*

That's my comment to this click bait.

Read the EU Update thread for more insight into this if you want to learn why 'click bait' probably is indeed the appropriate term. In fact, this thread belongs subsumed in that one, in my opinion.

What is the illegal act here? If Tesla registered 5 cars would that be ok?

Perhaps the story headline should read akin to "Backwards thinking, stone age era Danish Government policy forces EV manufacturers to pre register some vehicles"...

Is anything on Seeking Alpha not click-bait? That's the only way they get paid.

yobigd20 said:

"Tesla: Something Is Rotten In The State Of Denmark" -> Seeking Alpha Author Research | Seeking Alpha

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General point: can people please post the names of authors when posting links to articles.

mkjayakumar said:

What is the illegal act here? If Tesla registered 5 cars would that be ok?

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Yeah, I'm not sure what was illegal here. I guess we'll see.

No concrete information and a vague array of numbers? Check.
Comments section taken directly from the year 2011? Check.


Why does anybody bother to read or link a seekingalpha article anymore...

Or may be someone in the Danish government forgot how to use a spreadsheet and has not accounted in their budget how to fund the ev incentives...

yobigd20 said:

preregistering cars that are not sold to circumvent tax law. uh yeah thats illegal.

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Absolutely nothing is confirmed in anyway, however, IF Tesla (or an EV at all) register 2500 cars, they have almost 2 months to deliver said cars legally. So there is zero substance to this article until the year expires. The author of the article can't even claim they were Tesla's. Maybe they were i3's. Who knows, but we all clicked on the article, so seekingalpha got paid.

let us say for instance there is no tax rate hike next year and Tesla did pre-register, or pre-buy the plates or whatever for 2000 cars. Would it still be illegal?

yobigd20 said:

preregistering cars that are not sold to circumvent tax law. uh yeah thats illegal.

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That is the speculation. There is no evidence yet this happened or that it is illegal to pre-register cars in Denmark. Reading the article, Tesla had been doing something similar in multiple countries and suddenly because of a tax change this becomes illegal? I'm going to wait until the investigation is done before speculating that it is illegal.

Sounds like a non issue now. Buried in one of the stories:

Esben Pedersen, a spokesman for Tesla Motors Denmark, initially rejected any allegations that Tesla had bulk registered cars, telling TV2 News “I have followed the case with amazement, and I would immediately pull the plug on the story. Tesla is not hoarding any cars.”

But Pedersen later made a u-turn, acknowledging that Tesla has been involved in the purchase of 2,500 number plates. “What I have been made aware of is that there has been someone in our headquarters, sitting and ordering number plates for all markets”, Pedersen told DR.

Pedersen has argued that the registration of the 2,500 plates is a fully justifiable move, as demand for Tesla vehicles has increased since the tax increase on electric cars was announced. He said he couldn't understand Lauritzen's suspicions about Tesla.

“It is realistic that we will within the next year sell 2,500 cars. The person has therefore ordered plates for these vehicles,” Pedersen told DR.
“I think it is unfortunate that as a politician he is willing to hang a business out to dry in the national media on the basis of incomplete information," he added.

Speaking to BBC News, Lauritzen said he is sorry if Tesla feels it has been targeted by the tax move and now feels that they have given a satisfactory reason for the registration of the 2,500 plates.

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http://www.thelocal.dk/20151112/telsa-accused-of-costing-danish-people-billion-kroner-in-taxes

hockeythug said:

Sounds like a non issue now. Buried in one of the stories:
http://www.thelocal.dk/20151112/telsa-accused-of-costing-danish-people-billion-kroner-in-taxes

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Great for pointing that out. Given that was the tax official that called for an investigation and he was satisfied with Tesla's explanation (so I guess there will be no such investigation), this is much ado about nothing.

Is there any reason why this was posted in the ´Belgium and the Netherlands´ forum? It is true that there are some similarities between Denmark and The Netherlands (both are in Europe and are relatively flat) but they are two different countries and as far as I am aware we (the Netherlands guys) are not involved in any illegal circumvention of the Danish tax laws. On the contrary, I think there are a lot of Dutch Tesla owners who hope to sell their current Classic Model S to the Danish and order a new MS (or MX), so an additional 2500 new cars in Denmark could be quite an obstacle for our second hand market :wink:

Of course you're right, N.

But all these countries are small neighbours of Germany, so a mistake is easily made.

The real fun of this topic is that exactly the same thing that the Danish Tesla Motors representative is 'accused of' is common practice in The Netherlands.

Certain taxes (income tax on private use of company car / bijtelling voor privégebruik) highly depend on the year that a car gets its plates. The rules can change dramatically year-to-year.
E.g. this specific taxs almost doubles for a Peugeot 308 1.6 Diesel when it doesn't get its plates on 31-dec-2015, but on 1-jan-2016.

I reserved such a car for February 2016 delivery to our company fleet, on the condition that the license plates have a 2015 date of issue.
Peugeot facilitates this perfectly, their representative mentioned amounts of several thousand cars being handled this way by them.

The case for a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is even stronger, this tax for this car more than triples towards 2017.