Petition Hybrid

[asanka791]

We are a group of individuals currently in the process of importing vehicles directly from Japan for our own personal use. The sudden and unexpected increase in taxes from the January 29 budget proposals have significantly increased our cost to a level that we simply cannot afford to bear.

The process of selecting, buying, and importing a vehicle for individual use directly from Japan takes about two to three months, nevertheless we had opted to do that after a careful consideration of the previous tax scheme and our limited budgets as it was more cost effective than buying from a local car seller.

Being professionals, we are in full agreement that the government sometimes need to increase taxes in certain places in order to support concessions elsewhere. But, please consider the fact that many of us have obtained leases and loans up to the maximum monthly installments possible with our salaries. The vehicles were already selected and ordered, the letters of credit already established, and in many cases the vehicle had already shipped out of Japan. With this tax increase, we are left in the helpless position of not being able to cancel our purchases nor pay the additional tax and clear the vehicles.

Therefore, we implore that you consider our justified case and make an exemption on the announced tax increment for already ordered vehicles

[Crishan]

We are a group of individuals currently in the process of importing vehicles directly from Japan for our own personal use. The sudden and unexpected increase in taxes from the January 29 budget proposals have significantly increased our cost to a level that we simply cannot afford to bear.

The process of selecting, buying, and importing a vehicle for individual use directly from Japan takes about two to three months, nevertheless we had opted to do that after a careful consideration of the previous tax scheme and our limited budgets as it was more cost effective than buying from a local car seller.

Being professionals, we are in full agreement that the government sometimes need to increase taxes in certain places in order to support concessions elsewhere. But, please consider the fact that many of us have obtained leases and loans up to the maximum monthly installments possible with our salaries. The vehicles were already selected and ordered, the letters of credit already established, and in many cases the vehicle had already shipped out of Japan. With this tax increase, we are left in the helpless position of not being able to cancel our purchases nor pay the additional tax and clear the vehicles.

Therefore, we implore that you consider our justified case and make an exemption on the announced tax increment for already ordered vehicles

Are you that stupid to go upto the maximum amount allowed out of your salary just to buy a "hybrid" to show off your neighbours? Pathetic man. You are just like my neighbour who drives a Allion which is more expensive than the house he lives in. Sheesh. Some are trying so hard to make a mark in the society with their ride. You are not saving any thing for a rainy day but for a car? Did you check with the Customs dept? Last time when the rates were increased it did not effect importers who have opened the LC prior budget.

Edit: pls don't tell us that you are importing a Vezzel

Edited January 31, 2015 by Crishan

[Schiffer]

i am sorry but i agree with Crishan on this. Simply saying "Salli thiyana widhata wada karanna epai" you went out of your way to buy a hybrid to show off, if you really wanted you could have gone through the second hand market or opted for something less. now stop crying about it. and like Crishan said i bet its a Vezel

You are like my neigbour who bought a Vezel and pays 50k per month on the lease and complain everyday about it.

[Crishan]

i am sorry but i agree with Crishan on this. Simply saying "Salli thiyana widhata wada karanna epai" you went out of your way to buy a hybrid to show off, if you really wanted you could have gone through the second hand market or opted for something less. now stop crying about it. and like Crishan said i bet its a Vezel

You are like my neigbour who bought a Vezel and pays 50k per month on the lease and complain everyday about it.

Schiffer, one of my customer stated he needs a loan to purchase a jeep. Got the process sorted and disbursed the funds. Later he shows up...... Guess what? A Vezzel. He says " meka maru jeep ekak. Kilometre ekakata 25k karanawa. I nodded my head acting as if I don't even process a driving license. One month later bugger says. "Meke 4WD nedda danne nehe ne crishan? Aiyo salli I thought to my self.

This is the current state thanks to car dealers.

[Schiffer]

aiyyo salli indeed.

also asanka791. the government doesn't create the budget tailored to people who didn't have a fall back plan and ordered a vehicle with Everything they got.

[Galle]

I agreed with some comments that we should spend according to the income.

But we should protects against the government decision to increase the Hybrid vehicle Duty more than 50 % in Robin Hood Budget.

There are many reasons for this,

a.) As sustainable economic policy, governments should promote the green cars like hybrid which save the fuel and finally which reduce the foreign exchange going out to import the oil.

b.) Economic and Tax policies of a country should be stable under any government and sudden taxed like this show the instability of economy.

c.) People who used the hybrid is not the top class of society, but people who trying to save some money from their fuel cost by spending bit more to buy a car. Getting them and given to others is not so fair policy.

d.) We are the people who Vote for this YAHAPALANAYA and it’s sad that we are the most effected people from the decision after few weeks.

It’s clear the policy is toward to safeguard the Car sales owners, not the general public.

[ozzie]

The problem is that once the tax system has been implemented, it is unfair not only to the one's who have already opened an LC, but also to the ones who are going to import there new hybrids.

The issue is that even with the budget has already been made, it is like a gambling system and you never know when there are catastrophes which are bound to happen, so as much as we direct that an accident should not happen, it is the same implementation.

It would be unfair for future parties to obtain there vehicles, and the law should be implemented for all.

[iRage]

I agreed with some comments that we should spend according to the income.

But we should protects against the government decision to increase the Hybrid vehicle Duty more than 50 % in Robin Hood Budget.

a.) As sustainable economic policy, governments should promote the green cars like hybrid which save the fuel and finally which reduce the foreign exchange going out to import the oil.

See..why do 90% of people out there think a green car is a Hybrid car ??? and only Hybrid cars have low fuel consumption thus reducing fuel dependancy/imports in to the country ?

Many non hybrid cars ranging from Kei cars to normal cars have fuel consumption figures that equate that of Hybrids (eg. Aqua claims what ? 38 kmpl ? but most of he new Kei cars claim 30 even more kmpl) and most of these cars have MUCH MUCH better real world figures than the likes of Aquas, etc...and..a base Kei car is 60% the price of a base Aqua ! even a fully loaded one, which has more bells and whistles and more fun to drive than you average Aqua and Allion, still cost only like 60%-75% of what a similarly spec'd Aqua would cost. thus reduces the amount of money we lovingly send in support of Abenomics...

EDIT: oooh...ooooh...and no pesky battery packs to be worried about...

It is unfortunate that govt.policy has restricted us and driven us to Indian and Chinese death traps and not proper safe and respectable and decent mini/city cars (and if the tax system is favorable I am sure many people would rather buy a 1 year old Japanese Kei car than a brand new Indian car which I think would pretty much come to about the same price).

So..whilst I agree with you on having to reduce fuel consumption/dependency and environmental pollution I do disagree with you strongly on the insinuation that HYBRIDS are the only path to this (made through your willingness to protest against Hybrid tax increase but not willing to protest against reduction of green cars across he board, at least a lesser taxes for cars <1000cc or evena new tax bracket for cars 660cc or less) ! As with the Kei car there are quite a few other solutions out there. So the policy should favor fuel efficient and environmentally friendly car policies not a Hybrid friendly policy.

DISCLAIMER: I am not saying I believe the current policies are perfect nor that there are no discrepancies, etc...

Edited January 31, 2015 by iRage

[Nuwan Perera]

Crishan n Schiffer are not the middle class people, and seems car dealers who are really not doing good business with Hybrids as individuals can do their own import. So simply they don't want to understand Asanka's idea.

And again, there was a budget amendment for cars in Nov and didn't expect it will turn like this unfairly. And for sure people will not order a Aqua if they have to pay over 4 million at that time, even if they have money. So there should be a fair deal for the people who ordered before 29-Jan.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Nuwan Perera

[kush]

Imported I Hybrid (FIT GP5) last month, thank god.

Rationale was the lower purchase price and not kmpl, I would have opted for the ICE if I could get it down for Rs. 3.5-3.7 Mn. Sadly idiotic tax system at the time did not allow that, ICE would have cost me over Rs. 4.0-4.5 Mn.

Tax discrepancy of 57.5% hybrid and 173% or so for ICE was not feasible. And the way Hybrids were coming in to the county this was inevitable.

For god sake they were bringing down Rage rovers and S Class mercs, just thing about the revenue and exchange loss for the country.

Anyway darn thing does 14-15 kmpl, I’m sure I would have got 11-12 kmpl on ICE so much for the economy.

[GayanR]

Being professionals many of us have obtained leases and loans up to the maximum monthly installments possible with our salaries.

[killercruise]

No offence but good lesson for the people who voted for the so called yahapalane xD.

[Dinukap4]

another 'Hybrid karayonge pu*a giniaragena' situation..

Edited February 1, 2015 by Dinukap4

[GayanR]

another 'Hybrid karayonge pu*a giniaragena' situation..

another 'Hybrid karayonge pu*a giniaragena' situation..

Remove the "gini" situation.hehehe...

[Crosswind]

We are a group of individuals currently in the process of importing vehicles directly from Japan for our own personal use. The sudden and unexpected increase in taxes from the January 29 budget proposals have significantly increased our cost to a level that we simply cannot afford to bear.

The process of selecting, buying, and importing a vehicle for individual use directly from Japan takes about two to three months, nevertheless we had opted to do that after a careful consideration of the previous tax scheme and our limited budgets as it was more cost effective than buying from a local car seller.

Being professionals, we are in full agreement that the government sometimes need to increase taxes in certain places in order to support concessions elsewhere. But, please consider the fact that many of us have obtained leases and loans up to the maximum monthly installments possible with our salaries. The vehicles were already selected and ordered, the letters of credit already established, and in many cases the vehicle had already shipped out of Japan. With this tax increase, we are left in the helpless position of not being able to cancel our purchases nor pay the additional tax and clear the vehicles.

Therefore, we implore that you consider our justified case and make an exemption on the announced tax increment for already ordered vehicles

1. Any case that you implore us to consider will only fall in deaf ears because this is not the parliament or the cabinet. And the finance minister is not a member of this forum

2. If you want to put forward your case, get an appointemnt with the finance minister individully or as a group.

3. "We are a group of individuals currently in the process of importing vehicles directly from Japan for our own personal use" sounds pretty much like a group of cheap ass car importers to me...

[vishkid]

Whilst the OP's post here (as it is) addressed to the forum is confusing, I also really don't agree the insinuation that people should be forced in choice of vehicle due to fuel import bill.

That should have been the case if govt subsidized the fuel to everyone, but the CPC is supposed to be a profit generating entity (we can laugh about how well that has gone but still that is the case) and it should generate additional income to government through the fuel price paid by the consumers.

The consumers with a larger fuel requirement will have to meet that via either working harder or better (generating more income) or by generating more income via entrepreneurial activity - both of which leads to an expansion in economy.

The question about emissions is next and hybrids would have an advantage over conventional vehicles in this case.

Butt as iRage too pointed out, there are much greener options available if this was a priority. And while it is somewhat important to Sri Lanka, it certainly is not a priority in the context.

If you take the overall cost of ownership, assuming the average cost of fuel is 130LKR/liter and fuel efficiencies of 10kmpl and 17kmpl respectively, the hybrids might offer a 5.35LKR/km advantage over conventional. This translates to about a 400k LKR saving over 5 years which is offset by the current battery powered hybrid requirement of replacing the battery around that time.

In 5 years then the average total cost of ownership is about the same then for conventional and the typical hybrid - in the present context. This would definitely change in the future when the battery and motor technology becomes better and more portable.

In future, I assume all cars would be hybrids of some sort - then the disparity of taxes would be a moot point. But until such time there's no definitive advantage to a country like Sri Lanka (which should be on an accelerated growth curve, ideally) by incentivizing hybrids over conventional cars. More important to the government would be how to manage the road/service infrastructure and urban area planning to accommodate the amount of vehicles using those facilities OR otherwise how to regulate the numbers.

Hybrid tax is making a lot of noise, apparently through a limited number of people, who in any definition of statistics does not matter much to the short-term ambitions of this particular government.

Edited February 1, 2015 by vishkid

[kush]

They would have imposed this tax based on calculations with expected revenue from LCs already open.

If concessions given that loss need to come from somewhere else, they may have to increase “Kotthamalli”

Bite the bullet and try to find a way to finance the short fall, to my knowledge they have never given any concessions.

[Crishan]

Crishan n Schiffer are not the middle class people, and seems car dealers who are really not doing good business with Hybrids as individuals can do their own import. So simply they don't want to understand Asanka's idea.

And again, there was a budget amendment for cars in Nov and didn't expect it will turn like this unfairly. And for sure people will not order a Aqua if they have to pay over 4 million at that time, even if they have money. So there should be a fair deal for the people who ordered before 29-Jan.

OK Nuwan, so you caught us red handed. Yes we are car dealers. (I assume you did not read my second post)

Selling existing cars at a higher or may I say at the revised rate won't benefit us in the long run (will be a short win for sure) So can you kindly lend us a helping hand by explaining how we as car dealers can maximize our profit with the sudden change of Tax rate?

[Crishan]

No offence but good lesson for the people who voted for the so called yahapalane xD.

Irrespective of the person you voted, didn't you see this coming after the government toppled?

So you want the tax rate of cars to decrease and impose high tax rates on essential items such as food, Milk powder for kids, etc.???

[Schiffer]

Crishan n Schiffer are not the middle class people, and seems car dealers who are really not doing good business with Hybrids as individuals can do their own import. So simply they don't want to understand Asanka's idea.

ow ban. api pau ne

Look Mr. Nuwan. My point was Streaching your budget to the maximum when taking lease/loans for buying cars. not against him briging down a vehicle personally. i also understand its his right to do so, but its just not sensible

[Nuwan Perera]

ow ban. api pau ne

Look Mr. Nuwan. My point was Streaching your budget to the maximum when taking lease/loans for buying cars. not against him briging down a vehicle personally. i also understand its his right to do so, but its just not sensible

Point taken Schiffer. Agree on your point. No one should plan to spend exceeding your budget. This is not like some people who are working in foreign countries give a down payment of 2 laks and putting the rest under a lease to get a Hybrid.

Also, bringing down a hybrid is not a luxury thing. All these guys who are affected by this if you see, are professional guys, who have well planed their financials, arranged their budget for a new car. Mainly Aqua, Prius, Fit and some for Vezel with some extra money in hand.

if its a hike of a 1-2 laks which is a 10-20% variation on the tax they estimated, I don't think we will be discussing like this topic here. Point is, this additional high tax once they have decided to buy the car according their budget is not fair and it goes beyond their threshold.

[Crishan]

Point taken Schiffer. Agree on your point. No one should plan to spend exceeding your budget. This is not like some people who are working in foreign countries give a down payment of 2 laks and putting the rest under a lease to get a Hybrid.

Also, bringing down a hybrid is not a luxury thing. All these guys who are affected by this if you see, are professional guys, who have well planed their financials, arranged their budget for a new car. Mainly Aqua, Prius, Fit and some for Vezel with some extra money in hand.

if its a hike of a 1-2 laks which is a 10-20% variation on the tax they estimated, I don't think we will be discussing like this topic here. Point is, this additional high tax once they have decided to buy the car according their budget is not fair and it goes beyond their threshold.

So Nuwan, do you assume that our Finance Minister will have a look at the Petition created in the AL website? Our mods Peri can check if Mr Ravi is a member of the site & invite him to this thread.

Or let me just quote your name & pass this message across when I meet him next Sunday at Rajagiriya church.

Edit: Let's face the bitter truth. If there is a loss you have to incur, you have to accept it. There is no way out. Let's just say it's Karma.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Crishan

[Jor-el]

Creating a petition here makes sense IMO, masses should be aware that vehicle importers are not going to sit idly thinking "this is our karma", instead they are trying and willing to do something against this. lets see what happens

[B2Spirit]

Well personally I don't see anything wrong with the change in tax rates.

We always had absurdly high vehicle taxes so why not hybrids.

Still even with the hike the govt has not made hybrids more expensive than ICE and they are still price competitive even in the mass market range.

So have we fixed the disparity in vehicle tax system ? Answer is not even close

In the old system an Audi A8 hybrid with its turbo downsized engine was taxed @ 60% and a maruti @ 170% which is absurd.

And even after the change Audi is @ 92% and maruti is @ 150%. So go figure !!!!!

In My opinion we should just scrap this engine CC based tax system and go to a flat rate like 100 or whatever.

It's fair for everyone as your tax bill is proportionate to the CIF.

However i think the govt should consider giving a waiver for people who have opened LCs at a reasonable date.

I know people who brought the their cars & opened LCs in December and could not get shipped them for various reasons.

They had no clue there was going to be a govt change @ that time.

But there should be no reprieve to people who opened LCs in the last 3 weeks before the budget. (After govt change)

Because whoever did not see the impending changes with the new govt & coming budget were either idiots or were intentionally rushing to get the LCs opened so that they could get a waiver incase the tax rates goes south.

Edited February 1, 2015 by B2Spirit

[bycap]

another 'Hybrid karayonge pu*a giniaragena' situation..

can't stop my laugh..... (rofl)

No offense

And seriously asanka791, what's the point of discussing about the petition here ?But I do understand that you faced to a really really big trouble. Better to meet some really responsible authorized personals and make a request or something.

Edited February 1, 2015 by bycap