LAHORE - The Car Dealers Association has apprehended that people are shying away from buying new cars and the government is ultimately losing the revenue instead of seeing any increase because of new tax measures.
The Car Dealers Association delegation led by Muaaz Qureshi and Mian Zahid Bashir while talking to the LCCI President Engineer Sohail Lashari, said that the government had almost doubled the motor vehicle transfer charges ie transfer fee for 1800 CC is Rs. 75000 (for filers) and Rs. 1,50,000 (for non-filers). They said that the increase in duties will not be beneficial for the government as buyers had stopped car transfers and were running their vehicles on authority letters instead. He feared that the increase in vehicles transfer and registration charges would increase corruption.
The visiting delegates informed the LCCI President that the registration charges for a new 800 CC vehicle has been increased substantially.
Furthermore, they said that Punjab Revenue Authority has imposed 16pc sales tax on vehicle workshops which has increased the cost of doing business for this sector. They suggested to reduce this to 5 per cent.
LCCI president urged the Federal Government to rationalise motor vehicle registration and transfer charges as the hike made in the budget 2014-15 is hitting both the public and private sectors.
The LCCI President was of the view that an upward revision in tax tariff should always be made in consultation with the concerned sector as they are the real stakeholders. Engineer Sohail Lashari said that he was advocating the idea of Public-Private Dialogue (PPD) only to strengthen mechanism of implementation of policies. He said that the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry will support all business sectors which are facing problems due to unjustified tax measures introduced by the Government in this year Federal Budget.