19.04.05

Web blog entry number fifteen.

Oh death, thou surroundeth us...

A few days back we noticed that one of the fishes went missing. Despite frantic search, it took a long time to find the poor thing, squeezed in as she was between the glass and the pump of doom. The pump has not been given that label whitout reason: already has it claimed no less than three victims. Two snails met their death while unknowingly venturing too close to its gorging mouth (a little space around the electrical cable that sucks in water and anything else close to it).

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13.04.05

Web blog entry number fourteen.

Life ain't easy. Sometimes bad news just keep coming.
In swedish we have a saying that "bad news seldom comes alone".
First the miserable Freya delivery, then Amanda's rumble in the stairs and
then the car...

My car is a constant source of pain. Last year, for the first time in the cars history, it went through the yearly control without remarks. This year it was back to normal again: The ignition lock was broke, the gas tank leaking and finally rust have started to eat its way through the chassi.

I have a very kind father with a need of getting rid of his old car. It's an Audi of the year 1991...ALMOST NEW!(my car is from '89). So it was kind of perfect deal for both of us, since it's currently just standing there unused. Had I been in any other place in the world, and I really mean ANY other place on our precious little oasis of life in this big universe, this had not been any problem at all.

My father would simply handed over the car keys. But here in Finland, there is something called "car tax". The car tax is added to the price of any imported car, independent of its state, counted as 29 percent of the cars value. 29% !!!

Then one might think that in this case there is no problem, since my father only wanted a symbolic sum for the car. But...here in Finland, the value of the car is equal to the current market value on the Finnish market. So how do they know how much my fathers car would be sold for here in Finland? What they do is that they keep this huge list that

contains "the market value" of ALL combinations of car make and manufacturing years. Yes, thats right. Total craziness!!! Think about the amount of people that works with collecting that bloody list.This would have been work enough if car prices were static, but remember that they are constantly changing. So every month they come out with a new list with new prices...but then again, they needed to invent something for the army of customs people to do now when the barriers are down, didn't they?

Looking through the list of prices, I get my next shock: The market price of an Audi 100 E from 1991 is over 6000 Euros!!! THAT IS OBSCENE! FUCK THIS!
How can people tolerate this? And how can people afford to drive around in new cars? I don't understand.

So to import my fathers car, I need to pay several 1000 Euros in car tax and then, believe it or not, you have to pay tax on the tax. That's right, you have to add 22% of VAT on the 29% of car tax.

So what to do? Fix my old car for 100's of euros or give away 1000's of Euros to the Finnish government that they can spend on nice parties in the presidential palace? I say its pure GREED and a toll in disguise. The only reason for this tax is that Finladn does not have its own car industry so the tax only applies on imported goods.
Tell you what: I will drive my Mazda until it disintegrates somewhere on the highway. Then I will continue forward by carrying my wife trainee and kids on my back.