Number plate price
likely to go down
PHILIPSBURG--The price of the 2007 number plates might very well be reduced. The Island Receiver is hoping to get the price down through public bidding.
Vehicle owners had to pay NAf. 42.50 for the 2006 number plate. This amount was added to the actual vehicle tax, which for regular gasoline vehicles amounts to NAf. 275. Island Receiver Sherry Hazel said on Tuesday she hoped the price of the plates would go down after the public tender.
For years vehicle owners had to pay whatever the Island Receiver had to pay Watkan Trading Company for manufacturing and transporting the plates. Watkan Trading has had the contract to deliver the plates for many years. The plates have been coming from Texas in the US.
Hazel explained that her office merely passed on the cost of the plate to the consumer. Purchasing number plates has become a costly affair for tax payers in the past few years, as they had to pay for new ones every year.
In the past number plates would change every three or four years, but because of tax evasion and to make controls easier for police it was decided to have new plates every year. Hazel said the number plate was merely a tool for the Island Receiver to charge vehicle tax.
Hazel said the public tender was intended to bring down the cost for tax payers. In the public tender, which was advertised in the newspapers earlier this week, prospective parties were invited to submit bids in writing before October 31. The aim is to award the project, approved by the Executive Council, no later than November 14. The plates have to be ready by December 31.
That the price of an item such as a number plate can go down via public bidding has been proven in Curaçao. A set of number plates cost NAf. 30 before and in 2005, with the most recent public bidding, the price went down to NAf. 25. The plates in Curaçao come from Germany.
Vehicle owners in Curaçao don’t have to pay for new number plates every year. Usually they just have to pay for small control plates that are attached to the sides of the number plates. The last time the entire plate was changed was in 2005. Curaçao’s Island Receiver intends to organise another public bidding for the 2008 number plates, an official at the office stated. Tax evasion is the reason for that decision.
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