First part from the Wall Street Journal ...AUGUST 23, 2009All Clunkered Out AUGUST 23, 2009
The dealers may, or may not, get their money.
The Transportation Department is ending its "cash for clunkers" program today, but the deadline shouldn't pass without recording a few economic and political lessons. To wit, the feds can't even give away money very well.
The $3 billion plan is being hailed in Washington as a great success because so many Americans sought to get a $3,500 to $4,500...
BUT WAIT! DID YOU DO THE MATH?
Democratic Math
If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you get $4500 off for an apparent "savings" of $1000.
However, you have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1350 on that $4500.
So, rather than save $1000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the feds. In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for. Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that you will now be making.
But wait, it gets even better: you also got ripped off by the dealer.
For example, every dealer here in LA was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for $12,500 the month before the "cash for clunkers" program started.
When "cash for clunkers" came along, they stopped discounting them and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500. So, you paid $3000 more than you would have the month before. (Honda, Toyota, and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did).
So lets do the final tally here:
You traded in a car worth: $3500
You got a discount of: $4500
Net so far +$1000
But you have to pay: $1350 in taxes on the $4500
Net so far: -$350
And you paid: $3000 more than the car was selling for the month before
Net -$3350 ...LOOK AGAIN! THAT'S A MINUS SIGN!
We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan but lets just stop here.
So who actually made out on the deal? The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they "gave" you. The car dealers made an extra $3000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies. The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before. And the poor stupid consumer got saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford.
Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4500 in "free" money from the "government" when in fact Joe was giving away his $3500 car and paying an additional $3350 for the privilege.
3 comments:
I work in car sales. We haven't been paid for the clunkers we took in, and no one I know of, knew anything about the feds collecting taxes on the 'rebate'.
It's easy to demonize car dealers, but most of the trickery and lies are originated by customers who want to get a car withourt having to pay a dealer.
I hope you didn't think I was demonizing the car dealers...
I think the author was demonizing the government program...and no, I never heard of the tax liability but I can believe it...the IRS operates independantly of the Executive branch and you can probably look forward to the question on next year's tax return, "Did you recieve a dollar amount from the 'Cash-For-Clunkers program? If "yes" please enter that amount on line..."
Hi Liberty,
Had an oil change yesterday and the Local Dealer I frequent still is owed about a Half Big one ( Millions that is)... Besides the salespeople told me that traffic in the dealership is way down since the Cash for the Pelosi convertible program.... Net results are... Dealers LOST Money!
But hey that Moron Biden is in Charge of the Barry disasters so how can we Go wrong??????
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