Dozens of taxes, fees burden Vietnamese car users

There are also many kinds of official taxes and fees on cars. These include the car part import tax for domestically assembled cars (assemblers pay this tax and take it into consideration when setting selling prices), import tax (paid by importers) of 50-150%, luxury tax at 40-60%, VAT of 10% and corporate income tax of 22%.

Currently, the imports from ASEAN, including Thailand and Indonesia, don’t bear import tax any more as per Vietnam commitments in FTAs. Meanwhile, the imports from non-ASEAN sources, including Europe, the US, India and Japan, still bear the tax

To put cars into circulation, car owners will have to pay about 10 kinds of fees. These include the ownership registration fee (10-15%), number plate granting fee, vehicle registration fee (VND240,000-560,000), technical safety assurance certification fee (VND50,000-100,000), emission testing fee, fuel consumption testing fee, energy labeling certification fee and others. 

As for road maintenance fees, car owners have to pay twice, when they register as owners of the vehicles and when going through BOT fee collection stations.

The car prices in Vietnam are among the highest in the world because of too many kinds of taxes and fees. It is estimated that the taxes and fees make up over 50% of the total prices.

 Though the tariff on imports from ASEAN has been cut to zero percent, the selling prices still have not decreased as expected by consumers.

 Car owners have been warned that they may bear another kind of tax – asset tax. The Ministry of Finance has proposed a tax of 0.3% or 0.4% on cars valued at VND1.5 billion or more.

 An analyst said if the tax takes effect, it will mostly affect luxury car imports, most of which have value of over VND1.5 billion.

 Decree 116, with its strict regulations, restricts car imports. And the number of car imports will decrease further if the tax is applied.

 Luxury imports are mostly from Japan, the US and Germany, which are taxed 40-150%, depending on cylinder capacity.

 Nguyen Xuan Thuy from the Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed that some car models are 60-80% more expensive than in Indonesia and Thailand.

 In 2017, a total of 272,750 cars were sold, according to the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (VAMA).