TWO ISSUES AFFECTING the IMPORTATION OF HERITAGE & HISTORIC VEHICLES
LUXURY CAR TAX and ASBESTOS
1. Luxury Car Tax (LCT) - vehicles imported into Australia are subject to a Luxury Car Tax irrespective of their age or heritage value. The LCT was introduced to protect Australian car manufacturers from overseas competition. The threshold at which the LCT commences is currently A$64,132 – but the “LC Value”, includes the cost of freight and insurance for bringing the car to Australia, and GST. The LCT also applies to the re-importation of vehicles taken out of Australia, if when they are overseas, they are subjected to any “treatment, repair, renovation, alteration or any other process”. This applies even if ownership does not change.
The AOMC in Victoria submitted to a Senate Enquiry in 2008 that “Unfortunately, and probably due to no more than oversight, the advent of Luxury Car Tax did not acknowledge this category of exemption (no Customs duty on cars over 30 years old) and imposed a barrier to the bringing of historic vehicles to Australia. Moreover, in the past two or three decades the historic vehicle fleet in this country once recognised as one of the finest in the world, with many examples of the rarest survivors from the first forty years of motoring history has been decimated. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of early vehicles have been shipped to buyers from countries with stronger currencies, such as the UK, Europe and the US. Those local enthusiasts who may have wished to redress such depredation in a small way have faced prohibitive cost barriers due to the impact of GST and LCT. LCT does not apply to domestic sales of old vehicles, its application to imports is inconsistent and has simply made worse the net losses of our pool of historic vehicles…….. The impact of LCT on the movement has been to restrict Australia’s access to the middle and upper strata of old vehicles, the very ones that we have lost most of in the one-way traffic out of the country. They are also the very ones that act in the same way as elite athletes do for mainstream participation in sport; they act as the beacons to inspire and attract new, younger people to the movement”.
Unfortunately the AOMC’s submission nor any since have failed to persuade the Commonwealth Government to withdraw the LCT for heritage, historic or collector vehicles. However, the Museums and Galleries lobby group have achieved remarkable success, as on 28 February 2017, laws were passed which resulted in them being able to import for display purposes only cars over 30 years old without having to pay customs duty, GST, or LCT. (The preceeding was based on an article by Doug Young, The Vintage Car. VCCQ. April 2017)
2. Asbestos in imported vehicles. Asbestos has been a prohibited import into Australia since December 2003. Asbestos causes Mesothelioma – an aggressive cancer that develops in the lining of the lungs, abdomen, or heart. Caused by asbestos, mesothelioma has no known cure and has a very poor prognosis. Border Protection (BP) is responsible for ensuring that asbestos does not enter Australia, there has been no change in Border Protection’s processes however they elevated their efforts from March 2017 in monitoring that imported motor vehicles are asbestos free.
Veteran, vintage, post-vintage, heritage or historic vehicles being imported into Australia require a declaration that they do not contain asbestos parts and may require a testing certificate from an approved test facility to support that. Intending importers should to have asbestos-based vehicle parts replaced before the vehicles are imported into Australia and replaced with non-asbestos items before shipping, they should also require from vendors adequate documentation, assurances and testing – including new replacement items. Failure to do so risks vehicle detention, extra costs and possible fines and seizure of the vehicle for disposal, re-export is not permitted.
Items on vehicles that might be of concern include: Asbestos tape; Brake linings or blocks; Clutch linings or brake disc pads; Diaphragms; Electrical cloth and tapes; Friction materials for, or within, internal combustion and electric motor vehicles (for example, clutch linings, brake pads and shoes and gaskets); Gaskets or seals; Lagging and jointing materials; Mastics, sealants, putties or adhesives. Note that goods manufactured outside Australia might be labelled “asbestos free” and still contain a low amount or certain types of asbestos. Such goods will not be permitted for import into Australia.
Full details on the requirements around importing of vehicles containing asbestos are on the DIBP website page Asbestos
Following a meeting in March 2017 between Border Force, DIBP, the Freight and Trade Alliance and Customs Brokers and Forwarders Council of Australia where the difficulties experienced with the management of the asbestos ban for vehicles were raised, it was decided that an industry workshop be organised.
Meanwhile circulating in the movement are a number of unsubstantiated stories of historic vehicles being dismantled by Border Protection with consequent loss of parts and considerable expense incurred by the owners. However there is one published account that warrants attention – Michael Sheehan at Ferraris Online. This details the recent experiences of two owners with Mustangs and DKW, and indicates that they incurred costs resulting from inspectiondamage and costs to replace seized parts, plus significant other costs – storage and professional.
That asbestos is so dangerous that it is banned in vehicles is presumably not the issue. The problems seem to be with the experiences at import processing points, and with owners unaware that the asbestos checking would occur or be so detailed, and with costs, paperwork and procedural complications. Possibly what is required are: 1. Vehicle inspection and certification processes that are cost-effective for historic vehicle owners. 2. Inspections that are respectful of the rarity, value and/or heritage/preservation features of the vehicle and so are undertaken with or by relevant specialists. 3. Information programs that explain the asbestos-free requirements in plain English and are readily available to prospective owners and importers of historic vehicles and circulated widely in the movement.
Both Luxury Car Tax and Asbestos in imported vehicles have serious implications for the collector car movement in Australia, hampering the importation of interesting, exotic, rare or more mundane heritage and historic vehicles into Australia, and similarly hindering the repatriation back to Australia of our unique heritage vehicles. (Extracted from the August 2017 Bulletin of the Vintage Motor Club, NSW,
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