Do NOT bring a car from the USA to Finland

[FinnGuyHelsinki]

The car tax exemption is now available for cars bought before the end of 2014 and lasts until the end of 2017 (if a person moves before that to Finland). Otherwise the car tax is due, so definitely the savings are negligible if not non-existent. Naturally there can be exceptions with some exotic models where the value in the market here is higher for other reasons than the purchase price, but generally not.

[Keravalainen]

Hi!
Everything written above seems to be correct.
Here's a case when a Finnish government office (Police!) was unable to register a non-EU compliant car in Finland: a total disaster!!

- Finally they had to ship the car to be used by an embassy outside EU!
Boy, that was an expensive adventure - for us Finnish taxpayers.
http://www.iltasanomat.fi/autot/art-1288548414834.html

[AldenG]

Hi!
Everything written above seems to be correct.
Here's a case when a Finnish government office (Police!) was unable to register a non-EU compliant car in Finland: a total disaster!!

- Finally they had to ship the car to be used by an embassy outside EU!
Boy, that was an expensive adventure - for us Finnish taxpayers.
http://www.iltasanomat.fi/autot/art-1288548414834.html

Trafi must have been so proud of its boys. That was a once-in-a-lifetime jackpot of pig-headedness, the acme of a pighead's career. It's awe-inspiring that they were able to overcome all traces of good sense or compromise or situational judgment to ensure that Finland was protected from weak brakes and misfocused headlights when chasing bombers or terrorists. Somebody could have gotten their bumper crunched. Or been injured. Or worse!

So what ever came of that initial investigation?

[AldenG]

I found the resolution.

http://www.hs.fi/m/kotimaa/a1421556838121

Fines for two bureaucrats and toothless scolding for some autocratic Helsinki police officials or officers, while one nameless bigger fish who made the key decision was not even charged. Basically "justice" appears to have been meted to each in inverse proportion to their actual culpability.

That's not very different from Kekkoslovakian practice, except that the whole mess would never have happened (inspection would have been ignored), come to light, or led to investigation in the first place.

I guess this was probably already old news for most FFers.