No increase in receiving applications for duty concession vehicles

"We have received only about 100 applications from the eligible government officers for import of vehicles on duty concessions after the recent excise duty revisions," said Mrs. Hiransa Kaluthanthri, Director, Department of Trade Tariff and Investment Policy in the Treasury.

These applications might have been forwarded by them at least two weeks ago as the applications are channelled through the respective line ministries, she added.

She also said that some misleading media reports have been published stating that Treasury has flooded with applications submitted by government servants to obtain the duty free vehicle permits after the recent duty revisions.

Due to rapid increase of motor vehicle imports, the government intends to keep it at a manageable level by increasing excise duty on vehicle imports from last March 31st midnight. However such measures will also help reducing the demand pressure on the foreign exchange and future excessive demand in petroleum imports too.

It is expected that considerable amount of vehicle imports would drop due to the recent measures taken by the government.

Before the tax revisions the lowest and highest effective tax rates were 40 percent and 290 percent respectively. Currently the highest ceiling is around 401 percent and this is also very much below the highest rate of 524 percent which was maintained prior to the revisions made in 2010.