Last Sunday, I accompanied my uncle and his family to Swedish Marque located near the Sungai Besi highway to make an official booking for his new Volvo S40.
Now, many of you might think that Volvo is “an old man’s car” or “a car for senior citizens”. Some might even suggest that the S40 is “a girl’s car”. Now, you need to look for the agent by the name of Chang (he is really a young guy) in Swedish Marque and ask him to take you on a demonstration ride, and then come back to me and tell me whether you still think of Volvo cars as “an old man’s car”.
And no, I’m not talking about Volvo S90, Volvo 240, Volvo 850 or Volvo 960. I’m speaking of Volvo models like the new S40, S80, XC90 and XC60. There’s also a C model which I couldn’t recall at the moment.
What impresses me about Volvo is that they are really generous when it comes to safety features. The number of airbags and side curtains are standardised for all models of Volvo cars, unlike Honda cars which provides two airbags for the front seats for a cheaper price, and four (two for the front, two for the rear seats) for a higher-end model. The Volvo car also comes with a blind spot sensor which tells the driver that there is a vehicle in their blind spot which cannot be seen in the side mirrors. And with six-speed automatic gears, it truly beats cars like Camry and Accord flat.
But this car costs RM170000 (rounded to the nearest thousand) including tax!
But what made me surprised was the fact that this car is actually priced at RM96000, which is indeed an affordable car for many Malaysians, and I am sure many Malaysians would love to opt for this car for its sheer quality when it comes to road safety. So far, I have not come across any other car makers whose safety has surpassed that of Volvo. Its performance (despite being a 2.0-litre car) is just as impressive, too.
So the next question begs to be asked: how could a RM96000 car end up being priced at RM170000 (almost twice the original price)? Well, as you could have all guessed, a great bulk of the increase in the price comes from the excise tax and sales tax. I had the opportunity to see the breakdown of the prices and here is the gist of what I saw:
- Original price of the car – RM96000
- Excise tax – RM48000
- Sales tax – RM12800
The tax alone comes up to almost RM61000, or almost two-thirds the original price of the car! The remaining balance that needs to be paid up would come from the price of the accessories and all the etceteras which are justified.
But we haven’t taken into account that whenever we purchase a new car, we need to do so using a bank loan! Add up the interest of about 2.85% (look, for cars the interest rate is not compounded, it’s calculated using simple interest – so compute 2.85% of the loan that you have taken and that becomes the interest that you need to pay per year; if you decide to pay back the bank loan in six years, multiply that amount of interest by six and add that amount to the principal) and if we consider putting a down-payment of RM17000 and decide to pay off the loan in six years, the total interest alone would come up to about RM26000. In all, you end up paying almost RM200000 for a car which actually costs RM96000!
So we can conclude that the government gets a great deal lot of tax from the people, especially from the sales of cars. Almost everybody today is able to afford a car, be it a Proton, a Perodua, a Honda, a Toyota, a BMW, a Mercedes or a Volvo. You can’t believe how much taxes the government collects from all these sales.
Well, I’m not saying that the government is wrong from collecting all these taxes. My only bone of contention is that while they have collected so much taxes from us – income tax, excise tax, sales tax, government taxes while dining in restaurants, etc. etc. etc. – and yet we only have enough money to purchase four hundred thousand (or was it forty thousand?) of the A(H1N1) vaccines, so many people are still living in poverty, our GDP as of 2008 is lower than that of Israel, Colombia, Thailand and Indonesia (Singapore is just one step below us, considering the fact that it’s such a small country! And of course, I know that the GDP has come under much criticisms); many places in the states of Sabah and Sarawak are still undeveloped without any accessible roads! So I beg to ask, where has all the money that was leeched from us gone to?
(For the source of the GDP listing, please click here.)
Sure, there is the national budget that is tabled to ensure that the people get the benefits of development and so on, but it must not just APPEAR to be done, it must also SHOWN to be done. I don’t care how many flowery words you put in to table the budget or to debate on a motion, I care more about whether I SEE things that have been promised are really put into action. If it is just talk, then I can talk even better!
Truly, you can now see for yourselves just how much the government gets from the sales of vehicles alone! In places such as Kuala Lumpur where the letters of the registration numbers change so frequently (just a few months ago new cars were registered under WSV, now it’s gone to WTF and WTG), you can imagine how much the government is really getting from us!
And yet, we have sub-standard infrastructures such as the Middle Ring Road II (you can’t believe how bad it was designed; bottlenecking occurs at almost every part of the road!), the LRTs which have to resort to pathetic methods of trying to accommodate the amount of people that commute using them, public transportation system in Ipoh in an entirely sorry state, private hospitals mushrooming everywhere and only the rich can go.
Oh, I know where the taxes have gone to! They have gone to space (our first astronaut, remember?)! They have gone to the F1! They have gone to business-class or first-class trips overseas! They have also gone to the crooked bridge that was supposed to link Johor with Singapore.
Don’t you dare tell me to be thankful that at least I have infrastructures which I could still make use of despite not being perfect! As a future taxpayer myself, I have that right to expect that the government which will take a significant amount of money from me to provide the people back with infrastructures which are of excellent quality and safe for the people; I have that right to expect that the leaders whom I elect into office shall ensure and put into act that the needy are helped regardless of race and religion; I also have that right to expect that when I am old I can count on the government to provide me with first-class health facilities. Only then are they worth all the contribution that I, as a citizen, must put in.
Otherwise, not a zit will I spare!
Henry Yew
