Daily Times

All Pakistan Importers & Dealers Association (APIDA) has appealed to Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to lower the customs duties and withdraw the additional customs duty on the commercial import of motorcycle’s spare parts.

In a statement on Monday, APIDA Chairman Khalid Waheed said that on commercial import of motorcycle spare parts, customs duty @35 percent, additional customs duty @ 11 percent, sales tax @17 percent, income tax @ 5.5 percent and finally general sales tax (GST) are imposed, which make the total impact of taxes to around 90 percent at the import stage. He added that all these taxes make the spare parts a super luxury item to buy by the poor motorcyclists.

He said that trade is on the brink of collapse due to higher rates of duties and taxes at the import stage, which increase the share of smuggled spare parts throughout the country. In the absence of proper transportation system in the country especially at Karachi where 50 percent commuting is by motorcycles by the poor to go to the their jobs every day, registered motorcycle are 15 million, which means 15 million poor people are paying over 90 percent tax on the maintenance of their motorcycle after buying the motorcycles on monthly instalment. He said the FBR has put a heavy burden on them.

He said that demand of motorcycle spare parts could not met by only local SMEs due to low production and auto vendor industry supplies to only assembler as 2.5 million motorcycle are being assembled annually and the gap in the market is fulfilled 60 percent by smuggled parts due to lower prices as compared to imported parts with higher duties and taxes.