KARACHI: Two leading Japanese car assemblers have stopped taking booking of vehicles from all the ‘non-filers’ including individuals and corporate customers.

The Finance Act 2018 prevents non-filers of income tax returns from booking and registering new vehicles from July 1, 2018.

Pak Suzuki Motor Company Ltd (PSMCL), which enjoys over 50 per cent market share, has asked its authorised dealers to stop booking of vehicles from non-filers from Tuesday.

“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,” the finance act stated.

A dealer of Indus Motor Company (IMC) said the company had also suspended taking booking of vehicles from non-filers from Monday, where delivery time is July 2018 and onwards to avoid any future complications.

IMC in a public notice few days back had urged the customers to change their status as tax filers as the names of many individuals are not in the active tax payers’ list while there are many customers who had booked a vehicle and are expecting delivery after June 30.

A dealer of Honda Atlas Cars said the company is likely to stop booking of vehicles from non-filers of income tax returns shortly.

Assemblers have also asked their dealers to inform the banks not to accept orders from non-filers.

For customer orders in hand with non-filer status, scheduled for deliveries in June and currently awaiting balance payments, assemblers have asked the authorised dealers to contact every customer individually. Failure to do so will result in delayed vehicle deliveries or order cancellation.

For vehicle deliveries scheduled for July and onwards, dealers are asked to approach each customers to change their status to filer.

The local auto assemblers fear sharp drop in sales following the government’s budgetary measure of barring non-filers from purchasing new vehicles.

According to the industry executives, 60pc buyers of cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) are non-filers, while 40pc are filers.

Sources said the “premium or on-money” is still being charged despite increase in production capacity by the assemblers. They said if a buyer books Corolla XLI and GLI now then he will get delivery in August to October. However, for on spot delivery the buyer will have to pay Rs100,000-Rs150,000 premium.

Delivery time of Toyota Fortuner is June while customers would get delivery of Corolla Atlis Grande, Altis 1.6 and Revo in September to October.

Sources said the delivery time of Honda City and Civic hovers between four to six months. On-money on City and Civic is Rs70,000-80,000 and Rs100,000 respectively.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2018