By IANS,
Islamabad : Owning a car in Pakistan just became frightfully expensive with buyers having to fork out anything between Rs.20,000 and Rs.130,000 more thanks to an additional levy that came into force with the 2008-09 fiscal Tuesday.
The new withholding tax (WHT) exempts 800cc cars but purchasers of 1,000cc vehicles will have to pay an additional Rs.20,000 towards registration charges.
The WHT on a 1,300cc car is Rs.69,000, on a 1,600cc car Rs.75,000 and on an 1,800cc car Rs.85,000. The WHT on cars above 1,800cc ranges between Rs.90,000 and Rs.130,000.
“Never had we faced such a jump in the fees of any product in the past 20 years,” The News Wednesday quoted an applicant at the registration office here as saying.
In an effort to ward off the WHT, many applicants had rushed to registration offices across the country June 29 and 30 “and got thousands of vehicles registered”, the newspaper said.
“In this exercise, they also greased the palms of officials, who pretended to be too burdened by the sudden jump in the number of entries and, thus, extorted their pound of flesh,” it added.