The Road Safety and Transport Authority (RSTA) has begun reviewing the vehicle registry system.

The authority has found that many people do not transfer vehicle ownership after closing the sale deed.

“A person selling the vehicle must transfer the ownership to the person buying the vehicle within 15 days and a penalty of  2 units, Nu 100 per day, must be paid after the due date,” said Tashi Dawa, RSTA’s director.

Tashi Dawa said that the authority and the information ministry in consultation with finance ministry had reduced the tax from 5 percent  to 1 percent  as depreciation to encourage people to transfer ownership of vehicles.

Tashi Dawa said that RSTA did not allow the person to register new vehicles and did not issue their new driving license, or cancelled the license of a vehicle owner who sold and didn’t update annual fees as per the rules of RSTA.

A person, who sold a truck recently,  said that he could not renew the blue book (vehicle registration certificate) as the vehicle was sold to India by the 4th person, who brought his truck.

Tashi Dawa explained that Bhutanese registered vehicles are only allowed to be sold outside the country after deregistering from RSTA.

Many vehicle owners hope that they will not have to pay the 1 percent tax as they sold their vehicles before 10 years and no authority made it mandatory to pay the taxes.

RSTA will complete the review of the vehicle registry system in two months from now.

Loten Zangmo

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