Exclusive | Chinese tycoon’s son buys US$3.8 million Bugatti Chiron in Vancouver with dad’s Union Pay credit card, complains about Canadian taxes
- Chen Mailin’s son, Ding Chen, posted a message on Instagram complaining about US$680,000 in taxes on the new supercar, saying they made his ‘heart feel tired’
- A salesman at the Vancouver luxury car dealership that is selling the Chiron said China’s Union Pay credit cards were a ‘regular mode of payment’
The son of a Chinese tycoon is buying a C$5.1 million (US$3.8 million) custom Bugatti sports car in Vancouver, apparently with his father’s Union Pay credit card, according to a picture of the invoice the young man posted on Instagram to complain about Canadian taxes.
Ding Chen published a copy of the bill bearing his father Chen Mailin’s name on his Instagram stories, with an exasperated message overlaid in Chinese: “These taxes … my heart feels tired”.
The photo, posted around noon on Thursday and due to vanish 24 hours later, had been roughly edited to scrawl out most figures, except the taxes.
But the 5 per cent federal goods and services tax of C$210,404.25 (US$157,400) reveals a pre-tax price of C$4.2 million (US$3.1 million), the approximate list price of a Chiron.
Additional provincial taxes of C$697,939 (US$522,100) bring the total purchase price to about C$5.1 million.
The bill includes a 1.7 per cent Union Pay fee, which, if imposed on the pre-tax price, would work out to C$71,400 alone – about the price of a BMW M3.