A junk is now a luxury car E. Ablorh-Odjidja April 14, 2019   My vintage 2001 sub-luxury Jeep Cherokee Sport utility vehicle, six cylinder engine, has qualified as a luxury car in Ghana because of a government fiat.   The manufacturer didn't brand it as luxury class.  But with an engine capacity of 4000cc, it has become a "luxury car", so says my government.   “Vehicles with engine capacity of two thousand, nine hundred and fifty (2950) Cubic Centimeters and more are required to pay respective levies,” the revenue notice states.   The levies start at Ghc1000.00 and ends at Ghc2000.00.     My government says my jalopy is a luxury.  So, it is reclassification at road worthiness certification time in Ghana for my car.  Now it can be taxed at a higher rate.   Naturally, this upgrade doesn't make me happy.  I will be happy if they had classified it as a junk.   I have no problem with taxation itself.  A government must raise taxes in order to generate the revenue to run the affairs of the state.   But, taxation, as said Adam Smith, should be predictable and in proportion to the benefits received.   Stamping luxury suddenly on a junk is not a predictable idea.  Neither does this taxation exercise confer on me any known benefits other than getting robbed of my hard earned dollars  . I am still going to operate my junk car in the country on unsafe roadways made more dangerous by crater size potholes.   By now you must know that my anger is not aimed at taxation in particular; but at the deceit inherent in the idea.    Why not tax all cars at their price point instead of at the engine capacity base?    A Rolls Royce is priced higher than a Honda Accord for a reason. But what if the engine sizes are swapped will the luxury in either be the same?    An honest accounting of real luxury cars in Ghana will reveal that about 80% of these cars are used by their designates at cost free, or on unincumbered ownership basis as consequence of official and unofficial usages.   But more about my dubious reclassification.  Even after this broad reclassification, I can only see a meager extraction of the dollars from my pocket going to benefit the government by this levy scheme.   The negatives from this sleight of hand taxation scheme start from the unfairness to owners whose cars have been so absurdly reclassified to the dead-weight losses that the reclassification collection attempt will accrue.   The need to have agents to handle the reclassification process means less dependency on existing information.  It means creating "Job for the Boys.”  Of men who turn to me more corrupt than the government.   The government want to levy luxury cars?    Well, it should do so on the real ones, including those used by officials.  And it should do so by the price point of the car.  But the same government officials, wrapped up in their luxury car usage mentality, will be the first to oppose this idea.    They wouldn't want the public to know the real cost of the SUV they ride, for spectacle, to visit unofficial ceremonies like funerals.   The intent to rebrand junk cars like mine is to entrap a large number of users for taxation purposes and also to draw on the illicit benefits that come from the corruption.    The bonus side of all this is the rebranding makes the luxury car usage a common feature of our society; and with this some social comfort in the public eye is achieved.   Of course, the reclassification is unnecessary, imprecise, deceptive, comical and seems deliberately deceitful.   While the irony of the branding is missed by many, it is not missed on my mechanic.  A toilet puller vehicle, he says, now fits the classification for a luxury car in Ghana!   So I end up paying GHC1800 to road worthy my car.  There is more to this robbery.   Initially, to clear the same car at Tema in 2008, it was revalued more than the Blue Book value of the same car bought in the USA.  In effect, the Port duties alone could have bought me the same car again.   So imagine, I bring a car that I owned outright only to buy the same car back from my government.  Some call such transaction a robbery!   Sadly, I am soon to realize that more levy abuse awaits me at the gas pump.   Proportionally, my car consumes more gas than one with a lesser engine size. And hidden at the gas pump is the government's 49% tax on all gas bought. Which means, with every visit to the gas pump, the bigger engine cars pay proportionally more taxes to the government.   The government’s greedy hand does not end once the gas is bought.  For decades and worse, there has never been a benefit for the buyer from price roll back at the gas pumps in Ghana.   Benchmark for crude goes down worldwide and the cheap price is felt instantly at gas stations in the USA.    At the pumps in Ghana, there is only a constant uptick in price.  All the benefits from crude price differentials go to government!   How is this underlining principle for taxation fair to the public?   What we have in this scheme is double taxation for vehicle usage. Overly taxation ultimately generates corruption and other social ills. If the government wants to stop corruption, it must first not promote corrupt ideals.    The government needs an ethical reason to fight corruption.  This reclassification and rebranding of junk cars as luxury ones need to be reversed.   E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com , Washington, DC, April 14, 2019   Permission to publish: Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited. If posted at a website, email a copy of the web page to publisher@ghanadot.com . Or don't publish at all.