PARF headache looms down the road for car dealers

WITH certificates of entitlement (COEs) so scarce and expensive these days, the Leng Kee automotive belt has been a gloomy place lately. But after Budget Day on Feb 14 brought steep new Additional Registration Fees (ARF) aimed at making car taxation more progressive, the atmosphere has turned positively funereal in some quarters.

“It’s like being stabbed with a sword,” one senior manager for a luxury brand’s dealership groaned. “Not just cut, but stabbed. And with the blade twisted over and over,” he added, moving an imaginary sabre through the air.

The new taxes raise prices at the executive car level and above, and apply to cars registered with a COE from February’s second tender exercise onwards. Most cars are lightly affected. Taxes for a Tesla Model Y or Audi e-tron 50 quattro, two glamorous electric cars, are set to rise by S$20,000.