Robert Horvat: I do not understand why children are transported to schools by “Bogdans”, instead of “Mercedeses”

People’s deputy Robert Horvat in an extensive interview to the publication Zakarpattya online expressed his opinion on the issue of customs clearance of vehicles. In particular, he commented on recently passed laws that regulate the market for used motor vehicles and introduced new rules for customs clearance of cars with foreign registration.

Photo 1: Robert Horvat during the discussion of the Bill 3251 (the so-called Horvat Law – aut.), which concerned the clearance of cars. It allowed to equalize excise tax on used and new cars and people received the opportunity to have their cars cleared not for 200-300% of their cost, but for 35-40%.

 "This bill, which concerned cars with foreign registration (the so-called Yuzhanina law – aut.), was proposed by the Committee on Taxation and Customs Policy. When the committee was considering it, I insisted on the introduction of a lowering factor of 0.2 when calculating the tax rate. And other deputies believed that it should to be higher. In the end, we settled for 0.5. If the reduction factor was 0.2, as I suggested, then everyone would have successfully had their cars cleared at an affordable price. But, unfortunately, I was not heard.I am for a civilized car market, so at the committee meeting I did not vote for this decision," – Robert Horvat said.

In addition, the parliamentarian noted that the topic of clearance of cars is not closed yet.

"I have drafted bills on the possible import of buses, trucks and special vehicles of Euro-3 and Euro-4 standards into the territory of Ukraine. When I am elected to the parliament, I will submit them for consideration. Because I do not understand why, for example, our patients should be taken to hospitals by "Gazels", instead of "Volkswagens"? And why are our children transported to schools by "Bogdans", instead of "Mercedeses"? In the current Verkhovna Rada there were certain people that did not let me to resolve this issue, but in the next parliament, I plan to do this (by the way, thanks to the repeated appeals of Robert Horvat, the government finally banned the import of cars from the Russian Federation on August 1)" – Horvat said.

The full text of the interview is available here.