Impounded vehicles suffer heavy penalty

Following the major crackdown on non-Rwandan registered vehicles with no legal documents and those with expired entry cards, that kicked off a week ago, owners are to pay 20 percent of dutiable value of the vehicle. Last week over 70 vehicles with foreign registered number plates were impounded. 11 out of 75 vehicles were owned by Rwandans illegally without paid taxes. Seth Muhirwa, Coordinator of Revenue Protection Department (RPD) during an interview with Bussiness Times said that owners are to pay 20 percent of the dutiable value of the vehicle as a penalty. According to him, those vehicles with improper documents could have entered into the country through dubious means. “The exercise is still going on and we shall be using random operation because if those vehicles with foreign registered number plates are not checked properly the government would lose millions of money in cars registered a broad” he said He added that the Government can lose taxes on those vehicles in terms of Value Added Tax (VAT), Import duty, consumption tax and the registration fee. “So far we have not encountered any loss since most of the vehicles with foreign registered number plates have proper documents,” he added. He further said that Rwandans are not allowed to drive vehicles with foreign registered number plates in the country. However foreigners are the ones to drive them if at all they have valid entry cards. Muhirwa said that there is an influx of vehicles with foreign registered number plates, most of them being driven by Rwanda nationals. Ends