Motor vehicle owners are staring at losses after the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) announced plans to auction more than 200 motor vehicles held at the port over unpaid tax.
The auction will happen on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24, June 2021.
Interested bidders have been invited to view the vehicles and other goods with the auction set to go down this week.
In a gazette notice dated June 21, KRA announced its intention to auction a number of cars and other imported goods that had overstayed in the customs warehouses in Mombasa.
Importers of the goods have been given until the auction day to pay duty.
According to Business Daily, the value of imported cars in the first quarter of 2020 increased by 16.86 percent, new data shows.
The report by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics shows Sh22.24 billion vehicles were imported in the first three months of the year compared to Sh19.04 billion in the corresponding period in 2019.
The units numbered 23,630 compared to 20,324 in Q1 2019, representing 3,306 increase over the period under review.
The government increased excise duty to 35 percent from 25 percent under the Finance Act 2019 for motor vehicles with engine capacities exceeding 1.5 litres, taking effect on November 7.
The tax led to increase in retail prices of both new and used cars, trucks and buses by more than Sh1 million. Vehicles attract an import duty of 25 percent, excise duty (now at 35 percent) and value added tax of 16 percent, payable cumulatively and in that order.