The SAAQ has changed their regulations concerning the payment of TVQ on the sale of vehicles. It will no longer agree to calculate TVQ on vehicle sales of $1 even in the case where both the seller and the buyer agree that $1 was the transaction price. As of about a week ago the minimum sale of a vehicle is $500 for the purposes of a TVQ calculation.
It Gets Worse
For certain vehicles between the ages of 9-25 years that are too old to appear in their evaluation book, you need to have this vehicle evaluated by Revenu Quebec in order for the SAAQ to calculate how much TVQ is owed in the event of a private sale.
MontrealRacing member mathieulsutton posted what we would consider a horror story about the new rule. Here is a copy of his post on the forum but briefly he says he went to buy a $1000 Murano for parts because he needed a motor for his Murano. The SAAQ sent him to a Revenu Quebec office downtown where he waited an hour and a half behind three people in order for the guy to tell him his car was worth $4000. He had to pay $400 provincial sales tax on this amount or he could contest and pay $150 to have it evaluated further. At this point he had to return to the SAAQ and finish the transaction.
It seems that the SAAQ and Revenu Quebec don’t understand that many vehicles this age are not in full working condition and are worth less than the “book” value. They expect a person to pay $150 to have an evaluation done on a vehicle worth $1000 in order to avoid paying the full TVQ. Oh and prepare to waste half your day doing so.
After learning of the new rule, MontrealRacing.com inquired with Revenu Quebec about the rules regarding which vehicles aged 9-25 years required evaluations.
Laurier Geneviève, from the department of public relations wrote :
As with any other property, the QST payable on the sale of a road vehicle users is calculated on the actual selling price.
However, in order to avoid payment of the full amount of QST applicable, sometimes the seller and buyer of a road vehicle users agree to inform the SAAQ an amount significantly lower than the actual sale price .
To counter this, it is expected that the amount which is calculated QST generally can not be less than the “estimated value” of the vehicle.
For a vehicle whose average wholesale selling price is indicated in the Evaluation Guide Hebdo (Cars and Light Trucks), the estimated value corresponds to the average selling price of roughly $ 500.
This guide only covers vehicles for nine years before its publication. However, some high-end vehicles, although too old for inclusion in this guide, just keep a high market value.
With no guide, the estimated value of those vehicles is established by an assessment carried out by a person with a certificate of qualification auto damage appraiser issued by the Groupement auto insurers.
There is actually a list of vehicles for which such an assessment is required. This list, scalable and not exhaustive, however, is not public. A taxpayer needs to know whether a particular vehicle is a high-end vehicle can obtain this information by contacting our customer service.
So it seems that Mathieu’s Murano is on this “list” because he was forced to drive to a Revenu Quebec office and have an evaluation done. Our inquiry was before Mathieu posted his story and now we will have to re-inquire about why the heck they are sending people across the city in order to have someone at another agency tell them what the book value of their vehicle is when they could just do it themselves.
One MontrealRacing.com Member who owns an authorized GAA accredited bureau posted that the SAAQ is simply sending people to Revenu Quebec because they have no idea how to implement this new rule.
It’s clear what is happening isn’t sustainable so stay tuned for updates!
