. The Ministry of Finance has said that the publicity of linking the amendment to the Finance Bill with the change in tax rate is misleading. The ministry also claimed that it was factually baseless to link the import of a large number of electric vehicles (EVs) from the northern border before the budget to the information leakage.

Finance Minister Dr. Swarnim Wagle’s personal under-secretary and public relations advisor, Nabin Dhungana, issued a clarification on Tuesday, stating that some groups have been spreading propaganda about the amendment of the Finance Bill and the import of EVs with the intention of defaming the Finance Minister.

According to the Ministry, an application was registered at the Parliament Secretariat on May 30 to correct the errors and clarify the issues after some linguistic errors and ambiguities were found in the Finance Bill that was presented in both Houses of the Federal Parliament on May 29.TAG_OPEN_p_21 According to the Ministry, the details corrected by the Parliament Secretariat have been distributed to all the lawmakers and the bill has also been included in the official record.

Responding to the questions raised about the decrease in the number of pages, the Ministry clarified that the number of pages was less when the table and the layout of the pages were adjusted. The ministry also claimed that no word or tax rate was changed without informing the parliament.

Stating that the practice of correcting errors in the Finance Bill is not new, the Ministry has said that the previous governments have also been making similar amendments.TAG_OPEN_p_19 The Ministry has given an example of amendments related to tax in 73 sub-headings under five points in the previous Finance Bill.

Meanwhile, the allegation that the leakage of secret information about the change in customs rate on electric vehicles imported from the northern border before the budget is also baseless, the ministry said.TAG_OPEN_p_18

TAG_OPEN_p_17 According to the ministry, Laxmi E-Mobility had imported about 200 EVs of the Kaiyi brand from the Rasuwa Customs Office. However, the ministry argues that if there was information leakage due to the reduction in customs duty on those vehicles after the budget, the importers would not be in a position to import the vehicles at a higher rate before the budget.

However, according to the Ministry, a new customs officer has been deputed to carry out further investigation into the matter that the vehicle had not reached the Rasuwa Customs Office on the basis of the documents.TAG_OPEN_p_16

A total of 649 electric vehicles of BYD’s Ato-1 and Atto-2 models entered Nepal from Corolla border point of Mustang from May 22 to 29. Among them, 51 vehicles were imported on May 22, 110 on May 22, 90 on May 24, 270 on May 27, 69 on May 26 and 59 on May 29.

TAG_OPEN_p_14 The ministry has said that the process of importing EVs will be long and technical in nature and it will not be possible to bring in large number of vehicles as soon as the information about the tax rate change is received. According to the Ministry, the import of such vehicles will be done as per the pre-planned process as the letter of credit (LC) has to be opened through the bank, documents of the manufacturing company and approval from the Department of Transport Management.

During the investigation, it was found that the vehicles entered through the Corolla border point were imported on the basis of LC after completing the legal process, the ministry said.TAG_OPEN_p_13 The ministry claims that there is no evidence that the budget has increased the tariff in some models and reduced it in others.

According to the ministry, 4,317 electric vehicles were imported from May 14 to 28 while only 2,764 were imported in the same period this year.TAG_OPEN_p_12 Therefore, it would not be appropriate to present this year’s EV imports in an unusual manner, the ministry said.

The Ministry has urged all stakeholders to be cautious of misleading information and propaganda spread on the issue of amendment of Finance Bill and import of EVs.