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Smuggled cars crushed by Philippines president to prove a point
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The Philippines has been experiencing problems with car smuggling in to the country without taxes being paid. To prove a point, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte crushed confiscated cars with a bulldozer.
Reuters reported that his officials were instructed to ‘give it to the buyer of steel’. President Duterte’s finance minister Carlos Dominguez told reporters “It does not pay to evade taxes in the Philippines so you might as well stop trying, because you will never succeed.”
20 vehicles were destroyed at Manila port with another 10 in the southern cities of Davao and Cebu. The cars chosen for public destruction ranged from a C3 Corvette to BMWs and Jaguars.
The Philippines government has a $180 billion plan to improve its infrastructure, and it says it needs the money in part from car taxes to pay for all of it. The Bureau of Customs seized $2.93 million worth of smuggled vehicles last year, part of the $866 million in seized goods. Vehicle smuggling is a big problem in the Philippines where car taxes can go as high as 50 percent for cars valued over approximately R912,000 ($77,000).
Original source: https://jalopnik.com