I know this might vary from garage to garage, but when car prices are advertised, are taxes usually in addition to the price advertised, or included ?

Usually taxes are not included. For example IIRC if you go one the Toyota website and use their vehicle pricing configurator it'll give you the option of including local taxes and delivery or excluding. Most newspaper ads will say somewhere in the small print whether taxes are included or excluded. Taxes of course will vary from province to province.

Also, note that monthly lease payments are usually quoted excluding taxes. On a leased vehicle you pay GST/HST on the monthly payment but not on the purchase price of the vehicle. (Cos' you are not actually buying it.) On a new vehicle you pay taxes on the purchase price so they are already in the monthly payment figure.

New or Used?
New, Taxes are DEFINITELY added as are a lot of other charges.

EXCLUDED,

and its not just GST and PST, there is air con tax and gas guzzler taxes too on new vehicles.

Plus new taxes were brought in in the recent budget. Ironically they apply to passenger CARS and SUVs, but not all those thirsty V8 trucks out there in red neck land.


GST and PST apply to used cars here (in Ontario and elsewhere) too. Its not too hard over the life of the average vehicle for the government gather more than the initial value of the thing in taxes!

The "$290" a month lease on my jeep was ~$420 after all the taxes were factored in.

Virtually everything sold in Canada the price is quoted without tax.

You can get prices including tax but for the most part it is safe to assume there is no tax included in prices.

Would you buy new or second hand cars?

I presume most cars depreciate by the usual 20-30% as they touch the road for the first time.

Depreciation is alive and well in Canada.

Generally I would buy used for that reason.

Recently introduced changes in the budget though are offering tax rebates / incentives to get people to buy more economical vehicles. Im not sure how that works overall, but if a rebate of couple of grand was to be had on a cheap new econobox, then that might swing the decision to a new one over one a couple of years old.

If I had a home business and could deduct the expenses for running a vehicle, then leasing a new vehicle might make sense, which of course is based on the depreciation anyway.

From what I understand you can get as much as $4,000 in rebates if you purchase the appropriate vehicle in Ontario. $2,000 from each the Feds and the Ontario Government.

In the UK you can "order" your selected low milage used car through a couple of on-line retailers. I have found these to be quite successful for my last 2 cars. Is there something similar in Canada? I have found a USA site but am not sure about the issues of bringing a car across from the USA.