Israel Earns High D&B Rating-for Vehicular Density

YERUSHALAYIM
Heavy traffic jam on the Ayalon highway in Tel Aviv. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

It will not come as a surprise to Israeli motorists stuck in rush hour traffic jams every day that the country’s roads have been rated among the most crowded in the world.

But that was the news from the American analytics company Dun & Bradstreet on Thursday.

The company said that while Israel has 3.75 million vehicles on its roads, fewer per capita than many OECD countries, vehicular density is 3.5 higher than the OECD average.

About 283,000 cars were delivered to Israel in the first 11 months of the year, according to D&B.

Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry has been cashing in on the boom in car imports with one of the highest tax rates on new cars and fuel, according to a Globes report.

With record new vehicle sales in Israel in 2021, purchase tax earned by the government on new cars in the first 11 months of the year reached NIS 10.8 billion, up 20% from 2020. This figure is likely to spike at the end of December to about NIS 12 billion as importers release from customs tens of thousands of hybrid cars ahead of the tax hike on those vehicles set to start January 1.

In addition to new car sales, the Ministry has raked in an estimated NIS 5 billion in 2021 from tax payments from employees who are given a car as part of their job. To this must be added another NIS 5 billion government income in vehicle license fees, NIS 17.5 billion in excise on gasoline and diesel and NIS 4.5 billion in VAT on fuel and the sale of vehicles. This brings government income to a grand total of NIS 44 billion from vehicles and their use during 2021.

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