Sri Lanka Imports 10,000 Cars After Tax Cut

[hyacc]

Sri Lanka imports 10,000 cars after tax cut

Nov 02, 2010 (LBO) - Sri Lanka imported over 10,000 cars in the four months after import duty was slashed in June this year while state revenue has also soared, a senior finance ministry official said.

In the first nine months of this year, the government earned about 15 billion rupees on taxes on vehicle imports, said S R Attygalle, director-general of fiscal policy.

In the January-September 2010 period, the government earned 9,920 million rupees on excise duty on vehicle imports alone compared with only 1,995 million rupees in the same 2009 period, he told Vimasuma.com, our sister news website.

"Apart from excise duty, there are other taxes on vehicle imports such as value-added tax, port and airport levy, and customs duty which all enabled the government to earn about 15 billion rupees from vehicle imports in the first nine months of this year."

Atygalle said 11,815 cars were imported in to Sri Lanka in the nine months to September 2010, compared with only 1,282 cars imported in the same 2009 period.

"Since June, when the import taxes were slashed, to September, 10,515 cars were imported," Attygalle said.

"This clearly shows the manner in which the reduction in import duty has helped increase car imports."

Imports of vehicles like tractors and transport vehicles on which import taxes were not reduced have also increased sharply in the first nine months of this year.

This was owing to stepped up economic activity after the end of the island's 30-year ethnic war in May 2009.

Attygalle said the number of transport sector vehicles like trucks imported in the first nine months of this year rose to 13,647 from just 3,797 in the same 2009 period.

The number of tractors imported during the period had risen to 16,489 this year from 10,482 in 2009.

"Imports have increased in this category of vehicles not because of the tax reduction but the increased economic activity following the end of the war," Attygalle said.

The government halved the effective tax rate on car imports in June 2010 with the aim of reducing the cost of buying vehicles as the economic recovery gathered momentum after the war.

The tax reduction brought down excise duty on a Maruti car, a popular model, to 90 percent from 183 percent.

[toyota sucks]

No wonder people increased buying cars

Vehicle prices in the market have dropped at least 1mill

What better chance to buy a car

most common eg's are

vitz 3.6mil to 2.6 mil

axio x 5.5mil to 4.3mil

allion 7.2mil to 5.5 mil

premio 9mil to 6.2 mil

as a friend told me

so if u had u'r mind set for an axio u could go for an allion or try to streach u'r wollet to go for a premio

By the way who knows when the prices will retern to previous figures

It also could be an overnight decision

Yet it's a petty old car prices (eg-121) haven't been reduced