Auto dealers gripe over cost of first tag

Santo Domingo.- The intention to collect in advance the 17% tax through the first license plate on imported vehicles and motorcycles concerns dealers who’ve warned that if that measure is applied many dealers would go under

Used Vehicles Importers Association (Asocivu) president Angel Alberto Then told Listín Diario that, if that provision is applied to obtain the plate of 100 vehicles, an importer would have to have, immediately, RD$7 or RD$8 million, without guarantee that you will recover it.

For the first plate of a vehicle, an importer would pay more than 76,000 pesos, according to Then. That tax is charged on the CIF value, which includes cost, insurance and freight.

“That is going to raise prices, it will make many companies go bankrupt. This measure will affect the economy of all those people that have to do with us and will reduce the tax revenue of the State because we will import less,” said the president of Asocivu, an organization that groups more than 200 local dealers that import about 18,000 autos per year.