Corporate vehicles’ trick to avoid ‘light green license plates’… “Regular license plate with 6 months rental”

Mandatory light green color for cars worth over 80 million won. Contracts are renewed every six months, and foreign cars with regulatory damage exceeding 100 million won are also competing for discounts in the imported car industry with regular license plates.

“I can also make the Audi A8 (144.4 million won) without a light green license plate.”

On the 24th, when I asked Mr. Kim, an imported car dealer, if I could purchase the Audi A7 (KRW 105.7 million) with a regular license plate, the answer came back that more expensive cars were also possible. He said, “If you sign a short-term rental contract and renew it every six months, even expensive models can be used long-term with regular license plates. This is possible because I am close with the CEO of the rental car company.”

Since January of this year, corporate vehicles with an acquisition value of 80 million won or more have been required to wear light green license plates in order to receive tax and insurance deduction benefits, and tricks to avoid this are rampant. The light green license plate, which was President Yoon Seok-yeol’s presidential election pledge, is a system designed to prevent cases of expensive imported cars being leased or rented for a long period of time in the name of a corporation and then being misused for private purposes.

Of the 10 Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi dealers the reporter spoke with, all said, “We may not put light green license plates on corporate cars worth more than 80 million won.” The method of repeating short-term rentals takes advantage of the fact that short-term rental cars of less than one year are not subject to regulation. If you extend your short-term rental for more than a year, you must install a light green license plate, but you can avoid this by rewriting the contract.

Mr. Choi, the representative of a rental car company in Gyeonggi-do introduced by the dealer, assured, “There is no system in the government or local government to track a vehicle and change the license plate color after registration.” However, an official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said, “We cannot force the replacement of the license plate, but in case of tax evasion, tax authorities can collect it.”

In addition, the most common method is to discount foreign cars priced between 90 and 100 million won to less than 88 million won. Since value-added tax is deducted for corporate vehicles, if the price is less than 88 million won, the actual acquisition price is less than 80 million won. BMW dealer Mr. Lee introduced that the 630i (M Sports Package) model, which costs over 100 million won, can be shipped with a regular license plate even if purchased in the name of a corporation. Mr. Lee said, “If you lease, the discount is up to 15 million won,” and added, “We added more discounts to the headquarters-level promotion.” He added, “Recently, competition for discounts among sellers has intensified, to the point where BMW Korea has imposed sanctions to reduce the amount of discounts.”

Mercedes-Benz dealer Mr. Park explained, “A 7% discount promotion is applied to rental purchases up to the E300 AMG line (KRW 93.9 million).” The price after discount is 87.33 million won. Another Mercedes-Benz dealer, Mr. Jeong, said, “Many corporate customers ask if cars priced around 100 million won, such as the E-Class, can be shipped with regular license plates.”

In fact, after mandatory light green license plates were issued, registrations of imported corporate cars priced under 80 million won actually increased. According to the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Joo-young, the total number of imported corporate cars with an acquisition price between 70 million won and 80 million won registered in January and February this year was 1,110, an increase from the same period last year (1,075). On the other hand, during the same period, the number of registered corporate vehicles worth more than 80 million won decreased by 18.2% from 7,047 to 5,762.

Kim Pil-soo, professor of future automotive studies at Daelim University (president of the Korea Electric Vehicle Association), said, “The current light green license plate policy is actually serving as a basis for lowering prices for corporate customers,” adding, “Rather, the issue of fairness with individual customers who pay the full price has emerged.” did.

There is no clear basis for sanctioning this. An official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said, “We cannot regulate each seller’s various discount policies.”

Reporter Oh Seung-jun [email protected]