The Excise Department will unlock ownership transfers of 10,000 cars bought under the first-time car buyer scheme and blocked by the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) because they are pending excise tax refund inspections in the next few days.
The department had barred the 10,000 cars from changing hands after the OAG said they were ineligible for the excise tax refund because they failed to completely submit the required documents and applications by July 2012, said Nutthakorn Utensute, an Excise Department spokesman.
Although the cabinet resolved to extend the deadline for the tax refund scheme's applications to the end of 2012 from July 2012 because of devastating floods in late 2011, the OAG felt such a resolution allowed only those who already applied for the scheme by July 2012 to submit documents by year-end. The office decided it did not cover those who applied from July 2012 to the end of 2012.
Mr Nutthakorn also dismissed media reports that 100,000 cars bought under the first-time car buyer scheme were blocked from ownership transfers. Under the scheme, owners were required to maintain possession of the cars for five years.
The lock-up period for the last car sold under the first-time car buyer scheme is due to lapse in 2019, he said.
The scheme, initiated by the Yingluck Shinawatra government, offered tax rebates of up to 100,000 baht to first-time buyers who bought passenger cars with a maximum engine capacity of 1,500cc, or pickup trucks with unlimited engine capacity but priced at no more than 1 million baht.
They were eligible to receive the refund after owning the cars for one year on condition that they maintained ownership for at least five years.
A total of 1.25 million cars were ordered under the scheme, which ran from Sept 16, 2011 to Dec 31, 2012, with a combined tax refund of about 90 billion baht.
Pornchai Jumroonpanichkul, acting director-general of the OAG, referred to the agency's random survey conducted in 2015 of 4,000 cars for which owners obtained the tax refund under the first-time car buyer scheme.
The survey found that a quarter of the sample were disqualified from the tax refund and had to return the refunds to the Excise Department.
He said 150,000 cars did not receive the tax refund in 2015, as the Excise Department was looking into whether they complied with all requirements.
