Toyota and Suzuki suspend bookings for Non-Tax Filers, Honda Atlas is on the way. If you’re non-tax filers then you should know that according to recent policy you’re not allowed to book a car. As, from now major car companies will stop taking new bookings from non-filers. Notifications have been sent to dealerships and changes will be in effect soon.
According to the government a change has made in the act during budget 2018-19 which has prevented non-filers from booking or importing new cars. Fiscal year 2018-19’s Finance Act 2018 changes will implement from 1st of July, 2018.
In this regard, major car companies in Pakistan including Pak Suzuki and Toyota Indus, have already got notices by the government to put into practice the new changes and will prevent taking new bookings from non-filers.
The new act states,
“Any application for booking, registration or purchase of a new locally manufactured motor vehicle or for first registration of an imported vehicle shall not be accepted or processed by any vehicle registration authority of Excise and Taxation Department or a manufacturer of a motor vehicle respectively, unless the person is a filer.”
After receiving the notice, the companies have already notified their dealerships to put off new bookings that will take longer than July to deliver. Seeing that, the policy change may cause problems towards order cancellations or delays in the future.
Indus Motor Corporations (IMC) advised its customers in a public notice to change their status without delay to tax-filer. The notice reads,
“While announcing the budget for the fiscal year 2018-19, the Government has recently introduced a new policy order to restrict all non-fillers from purchasing locally manufactured and/or imported vehicles. This includes all individuals whose names do not appear in the Active Taxpayer’s List as well as those customers who have already booked a vehicle and are expecting delivery after 30th June, 2018.”
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Moreover, the company says that any orders made by non-filers that are pending and will get delivered after June 30th, might get canceled if they fail to attain a tax-filer status in time.
On the other hand, Honda Atlas is likely to follow suit shortly as well.
Pending Bookings
Authorized dealers are advised by auto companies to individually contact non-filer customers whose orders are planned to get delivered in June. The same rule applies for those with pending balance payments and their deliveries scheduled to be done after July. So, now dealerships will contact each customer and request them to change their status to tax-filer.
Furthermore, the companies have prevented their respective partner banks as well to stop taking orders from non-filers. However, auto companies have asked the government to undo these changes, as they will drop a significant portion of sales.
Auto Companies are also thinking to take this matter to the court for the reason that this change will also support even more illegal own-money practices in country. They stated,
“The condition set by the government is also likely to encourage investors, profiteers and individuals being filers to purchase vehicles and resale them on higher prices to non-filers”
However, for now non-filers can still pay own-money to acquire their vehicles delivered before the 1st of July, at premiums of Rs. 70,000 to Rs. 150,000 on different famous models.
