DHAKA: Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicle Importers and Dealers Association (BARVIDA) on Wednesday sought tax rebates and incentives for imported of reconditioned hybrid cars.
A hybrid vehicle uses two or more distinct types of power, such as internal combustion engine plus electric motor.
The association leaders said price of reconditioned hybrid cars is comparatively 35 to 40 percent more than the fossil cars where they proposed to provide 35 percent subsidy to supply such fuel effective and environment-friendly cars with almost similar price of the fossil cars.
Besides, the association leaders also made some proposals including re-assessment of depreciation rates of fossil fuel cars, amendment of counting rating system of the cars to provide depreciation and changes in slab-wise tax impositions.
They made the proposals at a pre-budget discussion programme with the National Board Revenue (NBR) at the NBR auditorium.
The discussion programme was attended among others, by the NBR member (VAT policy) Barrister Jahangir Hossain, NBR Member (Duty Policy) Md Lutfor Rahman, NBR member (income tax policy) Parvez Iqbal, Chairman of BARVIDA Habib Ullah Dawn and General secretary of BARVIDA Mohammad Habibur Rahman.
Speaking on the programme Habib Ullah Dawn said most of the countries in the world are now taking the advantages of the hybrid cars but the country is still yet to grab it.
He said imports of such cars will significantly reduce use of fossil fuel and compressed natural gas (CNG).
“Besides, it is very much important to import cars as our 95 percent reconditioned cars are being imported from Japan and Japan is day by day moving to manufacturing only hybrid cars from fossil cars,” he added.
Habib Ullah Dawn said including Japan and European countries Sri Lanka, Philippine and Taiwan are also giving incentives and tax rebates on buying hybrid cars.
Mohammad Habibur Rahman insisted on changes in slab-wise tax impositions to promote the imports of reconditioned cars.
Barrister Jahangir Hossain said they have noted the proposals and demands of the BARVIDA and will work on it accordingly.
