Prospective car owners will cough out more than budgeted sum to own tokunbo vehicles as from next year as the FG released the details of new duties and levies payable on imported new and used vehicles as well as imported new tyres from next year, raising the tariff from 20 per cent to 70 per cent.
Dealers of imported vehicles estimated that the new rate would translate into an increase of 60 per cent on imported cars. The Federal Executive Council had last month approved a new national automotive policy aimed at encouraging local production and assembling of new vehicles with an imposition of a high import tariff on fully built vehicles. But the new rate was not given then.
A two-page document dated November 14, 2013 and signed by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, gave the new import tariff on cars as 70 per cent (of the cost of each vehicle). It stated that a fully built car would attract a duty of 35 per cent and a levy of another 35 per cent of the cost of the vehicle.