Finance Ministry needs Bt11 bn more funding
A large number of people have requested tax refunds under the first-time-car-buyer scheme and the Finance Ministry has to ask for more funding to satisfy the demand.
Deputy Finance Minister Tanusak Lek-uthai said yesterday that so far 300,000 buyers had applied for tax refunds under the programme.
Their combined refunds are worth Bt29 billion. The ministry has so far approved Bt18 billion worth, but it has cash in hand of only Bt7.5 billion for the current fiscal year for the scheme.
Tanusak said the ministry had to ask for an additional Bt11 billion from the government’s central fund.
He said more people would apply for the tax refund during the remainder of the year. The number of first-time car buyers is expected to meet the target of 500,000, he said.
"The Comptroller-General’s Department has given tax refunds worth Bt849 million to about 11,000 car owners," he said.
From now on, the ministry will pay out the refunds once a month instead of twice as previously, since it has to examine the eligibility of applicants, Tanusak said.
He conceded that the ministry could not pay the refunds quickly to so many applicants as officials needed time to verify documents.
Somchai Poonsawasdi, director-general of the Excise Department, said he had assigned tax officials to provide faster service for people.
They will have to work during year-end holidays as more people are expecting to apply for tax refunds.
The programme will expire at the end of the year. Each car buyer could get an excise-tax refund of as much as Bt100,000. They are not allowed to sell their new cars for five years.
Economists have criticised the scheme and suggested the government should have saved this tax money for investment in mass-transit systems.
