Excise Department Director-General Benja Louichareon announced that the number of cars signed up for excise tax refunds under the government’s first-car scheme has been rapidly increasing from 100 units per week at the start of the scheme to 1,000 and eventually 10,000.
Ms Benja said currently up to 145,000 cars are already eligible for the tax rebate totaling 10 billion baht in value. She believed that by the end of the year, 500,000 cars will be under the scheme, with over 30 billion baht worth of taxes to be returned.
According to the Excise Department’s statistics, so far 80,000 passenger cars, 32,000 trucks, and 31,600 double cabs have been entered into the first-car scheme. The Excise Department is planning to request a 7-billion-baht budget from the 2013 fiscal year to repay the taxes. If the amount does not suffice, the department will ask the government to spare the remainder from its central budget.
