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“House of representatives” replies to drivers: Car tax will be imposed

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“House of representatives” replies to drivers: Car tax will be imposed

The draft law on state duties for car owners was adopted at second reading.

“MPs” voted in favour of the draft law “On Amendments to Some Laws of the Republic of Belarus on Business and Taxes”, which imposes a state duty for car owners for letting vehicles using roads from January 1, 2014, Interfax news agency reports.

“One of the new proposals of the draft law, which is widely discussed by public, is a state duty for car owners for the right to use roads,” Aliaksandr Miakinnik, a deputy head of the commission for budget and finances, said introducing the draft law to the “parliament”.

“The draft law proposes to oblige all vehicle owners to pay the state duty,” he said.

Aliaksandr Miakinnik turned attention to the fact that different variants of financing the roads sector has been discussed. “There were proposals to make this contribution a part of the fuel price. But in this case fuel will cost higher than in Russia, that will have a negative impact on competitive abilities of Belarusian fuel, also at the Russian market,” he said.

He underlined that other countries, Belarus's partners in the Customs Union, had a similar duty.

Miakinnik said the draft law didn't change the main tax rates that allowed Belarus to give equal conditions for business in 2014 in comparison with other countries of the Customs Union.

The “MPs” says the draft law changed rates of excises on main groups of excise goods. In particular, excise rates on spirits increase 27.3%, beer – 20%, car fuel – 14%, tobacco – 24-40%. The excise policy complied with the Customs Union's practice of excise unification, Miakinnik explained.

We remind that more than 50,000 Belarusians signed the petition against a new tax over the last three days. The petition is posted on the website change.org. Initiators promise to hand in the document to the Belarusian minister of finance and MPs.

“As the excise duty on fuel contains contributions on roads repair, we consider the introduction of a new duty to be unreasonable. The draft law doesn't take into account the fact that some car owners use vehicles in rare cases, and equals them to those using cars on a regular basis or for commercial purposes. The draft law doesn't take into account the fact that one will have to pay the duty after the purchase of a car or when undergoing vehicle inspection, though the previous owner already pay the duty,” the initiators think.

The petition appeared on the Internet on December 13.

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