I'm not happy about the appraisal regulation either, but its not hard to understand. The government saw a situation where they were losing sales tax revenue, because some people weren't disclosing the actual price that they had paid for a vehicle in a private sale. Instead, they would claim that they had paid less for a vehicle than they actually did, in order to pay less sales tax on the transfer of ownership. After many years of that situation going on, the government decided to close that loophole, and they now require the appraisal, in order to collect a more realistic amount of sales tax money when older cars change hands. That doesn't mean that some people don't try to get a more "friendly" appraisal done on a car that they're buying, so they can get away with paying less sales tax.
Its a similiar situation to what's happening in Ontario now with emission control inspections. Existing laws that had been on the books for many years, but poorly enforced, are now being more strictly enforced, so the government can collect some more revenue from people whose cars aren't emission compliant.
