Strictly speaking, both Estonia's Minister of Finance Mart Võrklaev (Reform Party) and businessman Tarmo Uffert are car collectors, even though they represent the two opposite extremes of the spectrum. Uffert is looking at an annual car tax payment of €2,000 for a car he bought for €100,000 eight years ago, which has only done 350 kilometers on Estonian roads.

"It is a 2002 Lamborghini Murcielago. It's a very rare vehicle seeing as it's a manual and the model first went into production in 2021. Sales started in Europe in 2002," Uffert said, adding that such cars are not meant for driving or selling but instead serve the purpose of showing people what kind of cars have been made and how the car industry has developed.

While Võrklaev and Uffert may share an interest in classic cars, they do not see eye to eye when it comes to Estonia's planned car tax, with the former being one of its fiercest proponents, alongside Social Democrat Jevgeni Ossinovski.

Võrklaev maintains that the government is aiming the new tax at hitting climate targets, with the fiscal situation no less important. "We need more state budget revenue to finance important public tasks, such as roadbuilding and public transport, which are currently underfunded," the minister said.

But car collector Üllar Suvemaa disagrees: "The motor vehicle tax will not hit any environmental targets. Rather, it's like an ownership tax, you pay for owning something. It is a fundamentally flawed approach," he said.

Tõnu Piibur, head of the Union of Estonian Vintage Technology Clubs, added that if the new tax was based on car use, it might serve environmental interests. "But if it's based on ownership, it kind of smells like communism, taking from those who have."

Put simply, the draft legislation would tax all passenger cars in Estonia with a one-off registration fee and an annual payment based on the vehicle's age and engine power. Rubbing car collectors like Suvemaa, Piibur and Uffert the wrong way is that no exceptions are provided for major collectors and private museums.

For example, Suvemaa's Laitse Rallypark museum holds the world's first mass produced car, a Ford-T, which is over a hundred years old and is not being driven, while it would still be subject to an annual tax of €924.

"The decision-makers either do not realize, do not want to realize or pretend not to realize what they're doing. They're not stupid, while they are arrogant and impudent," Suvemaa slammed.

While the bill would have private individuals pay just €50 for vehicles that are 20 years and older, such as Võrklaev's 1970s GAZ, there is no such exemption for legal persons. Unfortunately, many collectors have registered their vehicles as belonging to companies or nonprofits. Võrklaev and Ossinovski said that having classic vehicles under a company's name suggests there is a business side somewhere.

"I don't believe it would be right for an old lady living in the countryside to have to pay €50 for their vehicle, while my GAZ or someone else's Lamborghini would be exempt from it," Võrklaev said. "I think it's a matter of equality," he added.

The tax in question does not concern trucks and buses and is rather more lenient on newer and more economical vehicles. While transport services and car rental firm Bolt will also have to pay in the ballpark of €100,000 in tax on its Estonian fleet of around a thousand vehicles, car collectors, whose vehicles are not operated but have been registered in the name of legal persons, will be up there with those required to pay the most.

For example, the MOMU Motorsport Museum in Turba displays 250 cars, while most of them are classic racers and not meant for driving on public roads in the first place. Luckily, many of them are registered in the name of individuals and will therefore run an annual tax bill of just €50 each.

The biggest payers

"Pealtnägija" turned to experts for help with a ranking of who would prove Estonia's biggest car tax payers.

Landing in spot eight of the informal ranking is Tarmo Uffert. His collection includes 73 cars, two-thirds of which are registered in the name of a private individual or aren't in the register at all. But 22 of the cars are registered under his company for an annual car tax payment of €17,000.

"Why should people be forced to pay a tax on cars that do not even participate in traffic? They are simply standing there for people to see, and now I have to pay a tax for giving people the opportunity to see them for free," Uffert said.

The businessman, who has been collecting cars for almost 20 years, is dreaming of opening his own museum, while he currently allows people who get in touch to come and see his vehicles.

Coming in at seventh is the car museum at Halinga, run by former vehicle dealer Peeter Kalli. His company owns 28 cars for an annual tax obligation of €23,000.

The museum is open to visitors from spring to fall. The cars on display are at least 50 years old and Kalli does not drive them unless he's going to a car show. The collection focuses on Soviet vehicles.

The Järva-Jaani Vintage Technology Shelter (Järva-Jaani vanatehnika varjupaik) would have to cough up €24,000 annually. The museum, operated by the local firemen's association, has 591 units of machinery and focuses mainly on rescue vehicles, while its collection also includes 34 passenger cars registered in the name of an NGO, which would be taxed based on the current version of the draft law.

Fifth place goes to Estonian grocery store chain owner Oleg Gross. His collection near Rakvere, spread over four hangars, holds nearly a hundred four and two-wheeled vehicles of which 56 are registered under an NGO with ties to Gross. These would run him up a bill of €41,000.

Coming in at number four is Laitse Rallypark the public exhibition of which holds around a hundred vehicles, 89 of them owned by a company.

Üllar Suvemaa started building a rallycross track in a field near his home 18 years ago and hasn't been able to stop since, the businessman said. Today, the complex worth north of €10 million also includes a car museum focusing on the history of motoring since the internal combustion engine was first adopted. The collection includes a replica of the world's first car, electric car, as well as a Ford Model T as a true icon of industrial car manufacturing.

The latter would be subject to an annual tax of €924, while the entire part of the collection owned by Suvemaa's company would run him €70,000, plus what he would have to pay for vehicles in his own name.

The bronze goes to Mave Varahaldus OÜ which owns classic cars left by businessman Mati Heinsar who died in a car crash in 2016. The collection includes a lot of Soviet nostalgia but also old Mercedeses. The firm, controlled by the businessman's heirs, has 96 registered vehicles for an annual tax expenditure of €77,000.

Second place goes to Mercedes Benz importer Silberauto and its owner Väino Kaldoja. The businessman's collection in Rakvere holds 91 different Mercedes cars for which he would have to pay €82,000. Kaldoja's is a private collection and while the doors are not open every day, people can go and see the cars if they make an appointment.

Crowning the unofficial ranking is Tartu businessman Neinar Seli who owns over 200 vehicles all of which are in driving condition.

The businessman remained modest and was reluctant to speak about the car tax on camera, while the tax will undoubtedly affect Seli.

Of the entire collection, 138 vehicles are owned by the businessman's company for an estimated annual car tax of €100,000.

In addition to a plethora of vehicles Seli has used himself, his collection also includes limousines one of which has been used to chauffer around Queen Silvia of Sweden. Other gems of Seli's collection include a rare minibus, with just 20 left in the world, imposing GAZ Chaikas, a 1958 Rolls-Royce as well as an ERR outdoor broadcasting bus. The majority of the collection comprises of Soviet so-called everyday cars.

The collection, housed at the former Tartu Comb Factory, is not a traditional museum one can simply walk into, while tours are organized from time to time.

On the one hand, Estonia has around a million registered vehicles of which around 650,000 participate in traffic. They include only a few thousand classic cars in museums, which does not sound like a lot. On the other, the people on this list emphasize that these are neither commercial vehicles nor do they constitute a luxury, but are rather a way to record history and culture and an expensive one for their owners at that.

Minister of Finance Mart Võrklaev offers critical collectors two possible ways out. First, the cars can be reregistered in the name of natural persons that would lower the tax rate by leaps and bounds, as is the case with his GAZ. Secondly, there are plans for a support instrument for museums.

Collectors remain skeptical, however, and rather characterize the planned support scheme as more unnecessary bureaucracy.

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