Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2017-08-15

Outstanding levy to be paid for luxury, semi-luxury and semi-luxury dual purpose vehicles

•- In terms of the Finance Act, No.16 of 1995, the owners of the luxury vehicles (diesel motor vehicles exceeding 2,500 Cylinder Capacity (CC) and petrol motor vehicles exceeding 2,000 CC), semi-luxury vehicles (diesel motor vehicles between 2,201 CC and 2,500 CC, diesel jeeps exceeding 2,200 CC, petrol cars between 1,801 CC and 2,000 CC and petrol jeeps exceeding 1,800 CC) and semi-luxury dual purpose vehicles (diesel cabs exceeding 2,200 CC and Petrol Cabs exceeding 1,800 CC) are liable to pay an annual levy up to 07 years from the date of first registration of such vehicles belonging to the said categories. The first installment will be charged by the Department of Motor Traffic at the time of the registration of the vehicle and the balance installments could be paid to the department or the insurance company. In the event of default of payment of the levy a 50% of penalty is to be charged for the outstanding levy. At this point of time, the total outstanding levy exceeds Rs.350 million.

Taking into consideration that the delay for the payment of the levy could be attributed to reasons beyond the control of the owners of the vehicles, the proposal made by Hon. Nimal Siripala de Silva, the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, to grant a grace period of 03 months from 2017-09-01 to 2017-11-30 to recover the outstanding levy on the luxury, semi-luxury and semi-luxury dual purpose vehicles and to charge only 5% of the relevant penalty from the owners of the vehicles who pay the outstanding levy during the grace period granted, was approved by the Cabinet.