Suzuki revises its prices for the new Excise tax regime

MANILA: Back in December when President Rodrigo Duterte signed the new tax bill, the car world in the Philippines went crazy. The bill proposed to introduce a new excise tax regime for cars and fuel along with other commodities. This was in an effort to raise 130 billion for infrastructure projects and other expenditures.

After a few revisions, finally, a new 4 tier tax regime was established. This new system is based on the NMISP which is essentially the price for which cars are sold to the dealers. Much simpler than the previous system, this employs a flat percentage on the NMISP.

It also signaled an increase in prices for cars, especially for the more expensive cars. Executive sedans, luxury vehicles, and large SUV s were going to be the most affected. Predictably the forthcoming taxes sent buyers into a buying frenzy to grab their favorite vehicles before they became more expensive. Now that the taxes are here, car makers are slowly introducing their updated prices.     

Suzuki was the most recent of these companies to launch its updated prices. This comes after their previous increase back in February. Their smallest and cheapest offering, the Alto 800 gets an almost 4% bump from Php 429,000 to Php 445,000. Its bigger sibling, the Celerio goes up to Php 558000 for the manual and Php 598000 for the automatic. Their B-segment hatchback, the Swift goes up from Php 698000 to Php 708000 for the automatic.  

As we move up, the price surges become more substantial. The Ciaz is now pricier by as much as Php 55000 for the top GLX model. Even the base sells for Php 795000 instead of Php 748000. Not even the humble Super Carry is left unscathed and gets a price increase of Php 10000.

NMISPs are closely guarded by car companies. This makes it difficult to determine if the price surges could have been lesser. For the moment though this is what Suzuki is offering.