SINGAPORE: The Government will introduce a tiered Additional Registration Fee (ARF) for motorcycles, with the system to apply to motorcycles registered with Certificates of Eligibility (COE) from the second February COE bidding exercise onwards.
In his Budget address on Monday (Feb 20), Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said the tiered fee system would affect a small but rising number of buyers who are purchasing expensive motorcycles. For this group, the open market value (OMV) of their motorcycle purchases are comparable to that of small cars.
“Just as we introduced tiers to the ARF for cars in 2013 to improve progressivity, I will introduce two more tiers for more expensive motorcycles,” Mr Heng said. He said the fee for motorcycles with OMV of up to S$5,000 will remain at the current 15 per cent. The next S$5,000 of motorcycle OMV will be subject to a fee rate of 50 per cent. And for the rest of the motorcycles with OMV beyond S$10,000, the fee would be at a rate of 100 per cent.
Mr Heng said according to current registration trends, it is expected that more than half of motorcycle buyers would continue to pay the current fee rate of 15 per cent.
Additionally, he said the Transport Ministry would cease the contribution of motorcycle COE quotas into the open category COE quota. This, he said, is to reflect the gradual decline in the motorcycle population, as very few open category COEs have been used to register motorcycles.
