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2003 Toyota Sequoia

Toyota Motors Sales U.S.A., Inc., announced it will conduct a voluntary safety recall on approximately 50,000 early-2003 Toyota Sequoia SUV to upgrade program logic in its Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) system.

“The VSC system can help control a loss of traction in turns as a result of front or rear tire slippage during cornering,” Toyota said in a statement. “In vehicles without the upgrade, the VSC system could, in limited situations, activate at low speed (approximately 9 mph) for a few seconds after acceleration from a stopped position and, as a result, the vehicle may not accelerate as quickly as the driver expects. There have been no reported injuries or accidents as a result of this condition.”

Toyota said that it instituted a running production change during the 2003 model year and published a Technical Service Bulletin to address this issue when it was first identified in fall 2003.

Since then, Toyota has responded to individual customer concerns by replacing the Skid Control Engine Control Unit in Sequoias impacted by this condition. Of the approximately 50,000 vehicles included in the recall, approximately half have already been serviced under warranty.

– By: Omar Rana

Safes are handy for safekeeping stuff you don’t want other people to get, like money. The only problem is most look so “safey.” Given enough time, any of them can be broken open. The best solution is if the robbers can never find it in the first place. No, that fake-bottomed can of Campbell’s Soup in your closet isn’t going to fool anyone. To this end, Budgets Are $exy has rounded up “The 10 Awesomest Safes I’ve Ever Seen.” They have a surge protector safe, bread safe, and dirty underwear safe, but my favorite is the iceberg lettuce safe.

The 10 Awesomest Safes I’ve Ever Seen [Budgets Are $exy]

There have been many reports in the recent years which question the impact of global warming on the environment. Commenting on this widely debated topic, Hollywood actress Brooke Shields says that irrespective of the fact whether global warming has an impact on the environment, it is in everyone’s best interest to adopt eco friendly practices such as conserving water and electricity, and switching to green products. Her new film “Furry Vengeance”, a family comedy, also focuses on the subject of human encroachment in areas inhabited by wildlife. The makers have also teamed up with Participant Media, a Los-Angeles based company, to integrate a social action campaign to co incide with the release of the film.

This campaign will focus on spreading the message of wildlife and habitat preservation by educating children in more than 16,000 schools across the country.
[foxnews]

If there was any doubt that location-based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Hot Potato are the next hot web thing, the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin in March hammered the point home (Om has called 2010 “the year of location”). The annual gathering of technology geeks was the site of thousands of “check-ins” from different venues, and the emergence of “flash mobs” as all the attendees saw crowds forming at various spots and rushed to join them. Watching a time-lapse visualization of those check-ins is like watching the outbreak of a virus on a medical show, or the firing of synapses in a brain.

Foursquare has gotten the most attention of all the location-based mobile applications, with Gowalla and Brightkite taking second and third place, although Hot Potato is coming up in popularity quickly. In part, Foursquare’s profile is a result of having attracted the most users — it recently hit one million users, a number that doubled in less than three weeks, and it only launched a year ago. There have been unconfirmed reports recently that some Internet giants are looking to acquire the startup: one rumor has Yahoo looking to pay as much as $100 million for the company.

So there’s no question that such services are popular — but are they a business, or are they just a feature that belongs inside another business or service? And if they are a business on their own, how do they make money? I’ve explored these questions and more in a report for GigaOM Pro (subscription required), looking at the major players and their prospects. At the moment, none of them are likely generating much revenue, since they are focused on building out their user base, but several have signed deals with media companies and other partners. Foursquare has done deals with services such as Zagat, the travel guide company, as well as several entertainment companies including HBO and Warner Brothers — and recently formed a partnership with the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, two of the giants of social networking — Twitter and Facebook — are also busy integrating location into their networks and services. Twitter has implemented geo-tagging of tweets, partly by buying MixerLabs for its geolocation API, and Facebook is widely expected to launch some form of location-based features (although it didn’t do so at its f8 conference, as some anticipated).

As Om described in a post earlier this year about location, many mobile industry insiders believe that location will eventually become a core offering of major platforms such as iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, or major web platforms such as Twitter or Facebook or Google. With that kind of integration, users will be able to use location in virtually any app — such as watching a movie and checking in with Flixster or checking in at a restaurant with your Urbanspoon app — instead of using a specific app like Foursquare or Gowalla.

For a more in-depth look at this market, see my GigaOM Pro report. We’re also discussing these issues and others at our GigaOM Bunker Session today; you can view a live stream of this exclusive event here.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Dunechaser

The HTC Desire is still one of the most wanted Android devices available. Many of thought this device will not see the light of day here in the US. Luckily we were all wrong. US Cellar will be releasing the HTC Desire this July.

Hungry for more Android info? How about a peek at some specs for the gorgeous HTC Desire including a 3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen display, 5 MP camera with LED flash, Wi-Fi, GPS, Android Market and an 8 GB microSD card. How about news of a launch date around July? We’ll need to make sure our rigorous testing is complete before you can get your hands on this sweet phone. Stay tuned here for more exclusive Android updates!

The quote above was taken from US Cellular’s Facebook page. Like the rest of US Cellular’s phones, this will be a CDMA based device. This may be good news for you Verizon and Sprint owners. If they can get a CDMA version, maybe the big boys can too. This phone was also rumored in the past to make its way to T-Mobile.

[via ubergizmo]

In a new tell-all interview with Rielle Hunter, the former mistress of presidential candidate John Edwards, reveals the most intimate details of her nearly two year affair with the former North Carolina senator to The Queen of Talk. Oprah sits down with Hunter for her first TV interview on the scandal on Thursday, April 29.

The affair — which was first undercovered by The National Enquirer — resulted in Hunter’s pregnancy with Edwards’ “lovechild,” Frances Quinn. Last month, Hunter answered personal questions about the affair for GQ Magazine and posed for pictures “partially undressed.”

By Matt Hawes

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spies one of our Audit the Fed ads that ran on Drudge.  Thanks for your support in making our Banner Bomb such a success!

by Jonathan Hiskes

Turbines like these will likely be coming to Cape Cod.Photo: Andjohan via Flickr

It’s been the mother of
all NIMBY battles, but now it’s closer to resolution: The Obama administration OK’d
the nation’s first offshore wind farm in the Nantucket Sound today, with
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar making
the announcement in Boston.

“I am approving the
Cape Wind project,” said Salazar. “This will be the first of many projects up
and down the Atlantic coast.”

The $1 billion project
will include 130 turbines off the coast of Cape Cod. It’s expected to produce
enough electricity to meet 75 percent of the demand on the Cape and the nearby
islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Local
opponents—including the Kennedy family—have opposed the project during a siting
dispute that’s lasted more than nine years. They’ve argued that the project would
disrupt the marine environment, mar ocean views, create too much noise, and
hurt commercial fishing. Many clean-energy advocates, on the other hand, have
argued that it’s an important flagship project for a fledgling industry that
needs to succeed if we’re going to put up a serious fight against climate
change. The result has been a public
intra-movement dispute among environmentalists, the most prominent example
of wilderness conservation priorities and clean-energy infrastructure running
into conflict.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick (D) and Ian Bowles, secretary of the Massachusetts executive office of
environmental affairs, have long championed Cape Wind and are claiming the administration’s
decision as a victory.  Bowles called the
announcement “the shot heard ‘round the world for American clean energy.”

Of course, other
countries are already far ahead of the U.S. in offshore wind: farms are churning off the coasts of Denmark, the U.K., and other coastal European
nations. In fact, Germany’s first offshore farm was just launched.

And even now, it’s not
clear how quickly the U.S. will catch up. Cape Wind faces several more regulatory hurdles and court challenges
that could take years to resolve.  And
other offshore-wind proposals are likely to face serious scrutiny and
opposition too.

Related Links:

The politics of the Gulf oil spill

Oil burn operation begins in Gulf of Mexico

Automakers go ‘green’ in Beijing

By dljholt

The Virginia Liberty Forum with Ron Paul, Bob Marshall, and Patrick McSweeney is just a week away.

Hundreds of liberty enthusiasts have reserved their seats for the free Liberty Forum and purchased their tickets to the Reception and Private Briefing with Ron Paul.

There are still a limited number of tickets available for the Reception. But ticket sales have been heavy over the last week, so don’t delay if you want to take advantage of this rare opportunity to meet Ron Paul.

For an even greater chance of getting some personal time with Ron Paul, we have a small number of tickets still available for the Private Briefing, but you’d better act fast.

Virginia Campaign for Liberty is providing complimentary hors d’oeuvres and cocktails at the Reception and Private Briefing.

Want an opportunity to meet personally with Ron Paul but just can’t spend the money to attend either of these great events? Perhaps you’d like to take a chance an winning admission to both.

Raffle tickets are only $25, but the winner gets $350 worth of tickets. Can you imagine how amazing it would be to be able to attend the Reception and the Private Briefing? The winner will also get their name in the event program.

But you’d better act fast.  Raffle ticket sales end at midnight on Friday, April 30.  The drawing is on May 1 at noon.

May 6 in Springfield is going to be an exciting evening filled with the words of liberty in what will be the Virginia event to beat all others this season.

Time is running out to reserve your seat for the Liberty Forum and purchase tickets to the Reception and Private Briefing. 

Get your tickets today!

Google is constantly trying to customize search results and make them more relevant to each individual user. It’s also adding more info to the search results page, besides the regular entries. One feature that has actually been around for many years, but that gets rarely used, is the ‘Similar’ websites link. This is probably part of t… (read more)

In March, China’s trade surplus turned into a deficit, prompting some pundits to proclaim that China’s economy was rebalancing. Others pointed to a surge in auto buying as proof consumer demand in China was picking up steam.

I did not buy either of those arguments, and instead proposed the numbers were indicative of collapse in US demand for Chinese goods coupled with massive surge in Chinese buying of commodities at ever increasing prices.

Samuel Sherraden, writing for the New America Foundation, makes that case nicely in Why Trade Figures Do Not Prove China Is Rebalancing

China’s trade surplus declined in the first quarter, and during March the country ran a deficit of $7.2 billion, its first monthly trade deficit since 2004. Contrary to some analyses, this is not proof that the economy has made significant progress toward rebalancing or a reason for the United States to back away from pushing China on yuan appreciation.

The short-run decline in the trade balance was driven by seasonal effects, a slowdown in China’s export markets, and a surge in raw materials imports – none of which indicate that China is making a transition to an economy driven by greater consumer demand.

On the contrary, a breakdown of trade figures indicates that although demand has returned, it is largely related to investment-led growth, not to consumer demand.

Weak export growth was a consequence of weak recoveries in the European Union, United States, and Japan, which accounted for 46% of China’s exports in 2008. Even though exports to the EU, US, and Japan increased by 25%, 17%, and 19% YOY in March 2010, these gains barely made up for the decline during the previous year. In other words, exports to China’s major trading partners have remained flat since 2008 (see Chart 2).

Import Demand Increased

While export growth remained subdued, import growth has surged. But the increase in imports reflects an intensification of investment-driven growth and demand for commodities and materials, not a move to greater consumer demand.[1] Fixed asset investment grew 25.6% in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the first quarter of 2009. Partly as a result, China imported $27.6 billion more commodities and materials in March 2010 than in March 2009, an increase of 77.1% YOY. This was the major driver of the $25.8 billion decline in the trade balance during the same period.

Evidence of Consumer Goods Imports?

Motor vehicles imports have soared on the back of strong government subsidies and increased demand, but imports of other consumer goods have not grown as quickly and in some cases have declined. During the last six months (October 2009 – March 2010), motor vehicle imports increased 211% from the same period last year. During the same period, imports of furniture and footwear increased by 15.4% and 5.3%, respectively, but clothing imports declined by 6.9% (see Chart 5). During the six months between September 2009 and February 2010, imports of air conditioners increased 9.0% but imports of televisions declined 54.6% from the same time period last year. In short, with the exception of motor vehicles, imports of consumer goods remained relatively weak, with some areas showing modest gains and others showing losses.

At first glance, increased imports of motor vehicles would tend to support the argument that China is rebalancing. But on closer examination, one would see that the demand for cars has been driven by a government strategy to develop a strong domestic auto sector, not by a goal of creating a more consumer-oriented economy. Policies to support the auto sector, which included significant subsidies for purchasers and producers of fuel efficient vehicles, were partly responsible for dramatic increases in sales during 2009 and the first quarter of 2010. While some stimulus to the auto sector will expire in 2010, subsidies will continue for gas vehicles with engines smaller than 1.6 liters; “cash for clunkers” rebates in rural areas of up to 18,000 yuan ($2,632); and rebates for “new energy” cars, or fully electric cars, of up to 60,000 yuan ($8,775).

Conclusion

China’s trade balance has declined because China’s stimulus program intensified investment-led growth, increasing demand for commodities and capital goods. Based on our analysis, it is not evident that China has made progress toward rebalancing to a more consumer-oriented economy. …

Excessive bank lending since the beginning of 2009 incentivized stockpiling of commodities and materials and the development of spare capacity. A tightening cycle could force enterprises in China to reduce imports and rely on existing commodity stockpiles and excess capacity to increase exports, leading to a rise in the trade surplus.

There is a danger, then, that the recent trade figures will temporarily reduce pressure on China to rebalance its economy. Given the likelihood that China’s investment-heavy stimulus will lead to a new surge in China’s net exports, it is even more important that the United States develop a strategy to encourage China to undertake structural reforms to rebalance its economy. Revaluation of the yuan, although no substitute for longer term structural changes, would be a good place to start.

There are more charts in the article related to Chinese demand for commodities. I encourage everyone to take a closer look.

Artificial Demand

The important point, but one that the article did not explicitly make is that China’s demand for commodities is hugely artificial, predicated on round after round of stimulus and outright monetary printing that has also fueled massive property bubbles and speculation.

So before one can even talk about ways to rebalance, global stimulus needs to stop. Yet, China Business says Another $586 billion “Stimulus” Coming to China.

Regardless, hoping to balance the US trade deficit with China by pegging the Renminbi (RMB) to some arbitrary level is a fool’s mission as noted in Why Repegging the Yuan and Other Non-Free-Market Solutions to Trade Imbalances With China Will Fail

The notion the RMB is hugely undervalued is in part predicated on a belief the Chinese economy is a lot better than it is. Indeed, near unanimous opinion suggests the RMB would soar if China floated it.

Here’s a question to ponder: What would happen if China stopped its stimulus cold turkey, pricked its property bubbles, and allowed the RMB to float freely, and in response the Chinese stock market collapsed, social unrest picked up, and hot money poured out of China?

Would the RMB soar in those conditions? I rather doubt it. Yet those conditions are what I would expect if China stopped its speculative bubbles.

The way to find out the true state of affairs is for China to float the RMB, central bankers to allow the market to set rates, and for governments worldwide to stop fiscal madness. That is also the way to rebalance the global economy.

Unfortunately, central bankers and governments won’t take that set of actions, preferring instead to blame China’s RMB peg for the world’s ills.

Join the conversation about this story »

Hint: Its tannin content can poison horses, and the flower-like things are actually hairy appendages.

Smog across Los Angeles (Photo: NASA)

From Green Right Now Reports

The American Lung Association State of the Air 2010 report released today ranks the metropolitan areas by the levels of ozone and particle pollution during 2006, 2007 and 2008. For particle pollution, the ALA ranks separately the areas with high year-round (annual average) levels and high short-term levels (24-hour) found in monitoring sites across the United States. Data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is used to compile the rankings.

The Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area was the most polluted based on year-round particle pollution. The Los Angeles metro area had the most ozone pollution and Bakersfield, Calif., was worst for short-term particle pollution.

Top 25 Most Polluted Cities By Year-Round Particle Pollution:

1. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
2. Bakersfield, CA
3. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA
3. Visalia-Porterville, CA
5. Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA
6. Fresno-Madera, CA
7. Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL
8. Hanford-Corcoran, CA
9. Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN
9. St. Louis-St. Charles-Farmington, MO-IL
11. Charleston, WV
11. Detroit-Warren-Flint, MI
11. Weirton-Steubenville, WV-OH
14. Louisville-Jefferson County-Elizabethtown-Scottsburg, KY-IN
14. Modesto, CA
16. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, GA-AL
16. Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX
16. Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH
19. Cleveland-Akron-Elyria, OH
19. Macon-Warner Robins-Fort Valley, GA
21. Hagerstown-Martinsburg, MD-WV
21. Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN
23. Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC
24. Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN
25. Parkersburg-Marietta, WV-OH
25. York-Hanover-Gettysburg, PA

Top 25 Most Polluted Cities By Ozone:

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA
2. Bakersfield, CA
3. Visalia-Porterville, CA
4. Fresno-Madera, CA
5. Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City, CA-NV
6. Hanford-Corcoran, CA
7. Houston-Baytown-Huntsville, TX
8. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA
9. San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, CA
10. Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, NC-SC
11. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
12. Merced, CA
13. Dallas-Fort Worth, TX
14. Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette, TN
15. El Centro, CA
16. New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA
16. Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV
18. Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN
19. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, GA-AL
19. Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL
21. Las Vegas-Paradise-Pahrump, NV
22. Modesto, CA
22. Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD
24. Chico, CA
25. Baton Rouge-Pierre Part, LA

Top 25 Most Polluted Cities By Short-Term Particle Pollution:

1. Bakersfield, CA
2. Fresno-Madera, CA
3. Pittsburgh-New Castle, PA
4. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, CA
5. Birmingham-Hoover-Cullman, AL
6. Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Yuba City, CA-NV
7. Salt Lake City-Ogden-Clearfield, UT
8. Visalia-Porterville, CA
9. Modesto, CA
10. Hanford-Corcoran, CA
11. Merced, CA
12. Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD
13. Provo-Orem, UT
14. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ
15. Stockton, CA
16. Chicago-Naperville-Michigan City, IL-IN-WI
17. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA
18. Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia, DC-MD-VA-WV
18. New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA
18. Logan, UT-ID
21. Eugene-Springfield, OR
22. Harrisburg-Carlisle-Lebanon, PA
23. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, CA
23. Indianapolis-Anderson-Columbus, IN
23. Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ

For details on each city’s ranking, see the full report.

Each year, millions of Americans fill out NCAA tournament brackets and billions of dollars are wagered on the event. Media companies dedicate countless hours to coverage, focusing primarily on prediction. No one seems to have precise statistics on the total time and money invested in NCAA pools, because the whole enterprise is so incredibly vast.

Yahoo! hosts a free bracket game, Tourney Pick’Em, that attracts tens of thousands of users. The winner collects a $10,000 prize. That’s your 2010 champ pictured over on the right, enjoying a carrot. Her name is Buttons. And no, this is not a joke, as far as I know.

You, me, everyone you know and every national college basketball expert — Vitale, Bilas, Pomeroy, Kellogg, et al — were all schooled by Buttons the guinea pig this year. This story would be kinda cute, if it weren’t also a total indictment of mainstream sports analysis.

Technically, of course, Tourney Pick’Em was won by a human. His name is Jake Johnson, and he’s an MBA student at the University of Tennessee. He’ll get the $10K. He and his girlfriend share custody of Buttons and a second guinea pig, Brain. Johnson claims to have deferred to Buttons on nearly all of his NCAA picks.

We caught up with him to get the details on his methodology, and the story sounds legit.

"My family does a bracket pool every March," he told us, "where inevitably my sister — who maybe watches five minutes of sports per year — beats me, despite my living and breathing sports. Of course given the competitive nature of our sibling-ship, I never hear the end of it. To prove to my sister that it takes absolutely no knowledge of college basketball to do well, I decided to use the guinea pig to fill out a bracket.

"I read [Buttons] the names of the teams, and waited for her to choose a team by purring. We repeated this process for 58 of the 63 games, excluding the first round games for the No. 1 seeds and eliminating Ohio University in the
first round — I have a strong personal grudge against the Bobcats."

That’s your winning formula in a nutshell: Carry the top seeds into Round 2, disrespect the Ohio Bobcats — who actually beat Georgetown in the first round — and wait for your rodent to purr.

I’m familiar with lots of ridiculous, arbitrary methods for making NCAA
predictions, but this approach seems new. I don’t think I was even aware that guinea pigs made noise.

Nonetheless, Buttons correctly predicted six of the Elite Eight, three of the Final Four, and she picked Duke over Butler in the title game. She didn’t miss a thing in the West Region. Here’s a link to the winning entry. Please take note of its name. 

"We laughed at Buttons’ decision to have Butler lose to Duke in the championship after beating Michigan State," said Jake. "Any knowledgeable human knows that two No. 5 seeds would never make it to the Final Four."

Well, obviously. In Johnson’s family pool, he again lost to his sister.

Buttons will enjoy a few small habitat upgrades following the win, but she’s already well cared for. Her day-to-day life isn’t so different from anyone else’s, really.

"She enjoys carrots, kale, hay, and just about anything else she can eat — including her own poop, which is apparently something all guinea pigs do. Considering her recent success, I am not in a position to judge. She spends most of her day laying in one of her castles or her tiki hut." 

OK, so there are certain differences — the castles, the kale — but at a fundamental level, we can all relate to Buttons.

Johnson tells us that some portion of the Pick’Em winnings will be donated to the Knoxville Guinea Pig Rescue, which seems appropriate. In case you’re wondering, he and his girlfriend have not officially put Buttons on the market, but…

"I don’t think the pig is for sale, but just tossing out a number — assuming $10,000 every March for the next 5 or 6 years, less cage-cleaning and carrot expenses — $45,000 doesn’t seem too unreasonable. More likely, I would sell her services on consignment, and collect a portion of the inevitable winnings."

He will not discuss a breeding fee. "It makes good business sense to keep the market cornered on guinea pigs with future-seeing capabilities." 

Can’t argue with that. Congrats to Team Buttons. Well-played, pig.

How is this possible? Looks like they’ve learned nothing from the recent Desire debacle where the phone keeps getting delayed due to them not having enough in stock. The Nexus One for Vodafone UK just got a release date of April 30th and it seems those devices are already gone.

If you like you can still place your preorder right from Vodafone’s site but you may be waiting awhile before you receive your phone. There isn’t even a mention of this delay on their site anywhere. You will receive an email that looks similar to this:

“Dear XXXXX

“Thank you for placing your order, reference number XXXXXX

“Unfortunately we have suffered a surprisingly high demand for the Nexus One From Google, which means that it is unexpectedly out of stock .

“Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused. We hope to have further stock available within 7-10 working days and will contact you again once your order has been dispatched.

“If you have any further queries please contact us on 0844 854 0430 or email [email protected], quoting your order number as your reference. Thank you for ordering with Vodafone.

[via eurodroid]

Bild.de has broke the news of German police raids of Deutsche Bank and fifty other financial firms over tax-evasion charges.

The investigation involves 150 people suspected of evading VAT charges due in carbon trading schemes.

The taxes avoided add up to €1 billion, according to Bild.

Bild explains the tax scheme as this:

Dealers in different EU countries buy and sell permits which allow industrial enterprises to release a certain amount of greenhouse gases.

On the sale from dealer A to dealer B across a state border, no VAT is due. Upon the resale of the permits by dealer B to dealer C within the same country (i.e. Germany), VAT does become owed which dealer C can then claim back from the tax office.

Dealer B owes the authorities 19 per cent in VAT – it doesn’t pay, but pockets the 19 per cent and disappears off the market.

Join the conversation about this story »