Buying/selling used cars: why prices are likely to skyrocket soon…

Will second-hand cars soon cost more? Always looking for new revenue to reduce the public deficit, the government would consider applying a penalty to all used vehicles, according to largus.fr.

Currently, only used passenger vehicles purchased abroad are subject to the carbon dioxide emissions penalty (or CO2 penalty) and the weight penalty (or tax on mass in running order), when their first registration in France. However, they benefit from a reduction of 10% per year of seniority from the seventh month following the date of entry into circulation abroad.

With this discount system, a private car less than 6 months old is not entitled to a reduction in the amount of penalties and conversely, a model more than 10 years old is considered to no longer have value and is sees zero penalty amounts applied. Problem is, this reduction system does not correspond to the economic reality of the loss of value of vehicles, which is not linear and is accentuated during the first months.

This is why, at the request of the European Commission, article 9 of the finance bill (PLF) for 2025 plans to modify the terms of taxation of used vehicles in order to better take into account their loss of real value. linked to their seniority.

Article 9 proposes to replace the current 10% reduction with a reduction system refined according to the age of the vehicles and the mileage traveled. It would be applied in two stages.

From January 1, 2025, a flat rate discount coefficient, determined based on the age of the vehicle, would be applied for the first 15 years. Compared to the current system, “ this reduction will be greater for recent vehicles, particularly less than 6 months old, and lower for old vehicles, consistent with the evolution of the value of the vehicle which is not linear »we can read in the explanatory memorandum.

With this new method of calculating the reduction, vehicles registered for less than 7 months would benefit from a reduction rate, unlike the current situation. The penalties on which they are imposed would thus be reduced. And vehicles 10 years or more would continue to be exposed to penalties (up to 15 years).

Furthermore, from January 1, 2027, an additional reduction rate, of between 1% and 4.5%, would be applied if the average annual mileage of the vehicle exceeds 20,000 kilometers. Which would reduce the penalties even further.

This reform would apply “only to newly registered used vehicles from 1is January 2025, provided that they have not been the subject of a first registration prior to 1is January 2015 »specifies the explanatory memorandum.

Furthermore, “in order to avoid circumvention and distortions in the internal market”article 9 of the finance bill for 2025 provides, « has starting from 1is January 2026, what all used vehicles for which the CO2 penalty or the mass penalty was not levied during the first registration will be subject to the penalty if they are subsequently subject to registration while the conditions of non- taxation are no longer met.

In other words, used vehicles which, upon their first registration in France, were not subject to one of the two penalties or were subject to a tax of a zero amount will be taxed upon their first resale.

However, nothing has been decided yet. The final terms of this measure will only be known after the promulgation of the finance law for 2025, scheduled for the end of December 2024.