THE vehicle sales tax exemption will expire on June 30 as planned, said Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz.

But buyers who book their vehicles before June 30 will have until March 31, 2023, to register their vehicles with the Road Transport Department.

“This is because there are many orders that cannot be fulfilled following the shortage of semiconductor microchips used in the automotive industry,” said Tengku Zafrul in a statement today.

“As a result of the shortage, there are some 264,000 vehicles that have not been delivered during the tax exemption period.”

He added that buyers would have up till next April to register their vehicles so they can book their purchases before June 30 and enjoy the tax exemption.

“The extension to register new vehicles is a midpoint solution to balance the government’s income and consumer interests,” said Tengku Zafrul.

To date, a total of 868,422 units of vehicles have been sold and citizens have benefited from sales tax exemption amounting to RM4.7 billion, he said.

The sales tax exemption was first announced in June 2020 as part of the Penjana stimulus package to mitigate the effects of the first movement control order for the Covid-19 pandemic.

Originally scheduled to end on December 31 last year, the exemption was extended to June 2021 and then to December 31, 2021.

As before, the percentage of the sales and service tax exemption remains unchanged from what was announced before, with 100% exemption for locally assembled cars and 50% for fully imported cars. – June 20, 2022.