HOW TO DETERMINE THE AGE AND THE OVERAGE PENALTY RATE OF A USED CAR IMPORTED TO GHANA

The age of a vehicle is very crucial in customs declaration purposes in Ghana as the age of the vehicle determines the rate of Home Delivery value (HDV) to be used for computing the duty and other tariffs. A car which is more than 10 years old is considered overaged and attracts a penalty which is an extra charge paid in addition to other tariffs. It is therefore very important to know the age of a car before importing it into the country.

Determining the over aged penalty for vehicles

To determine the age of a vehicle, two concepts are widely used the “MODEL YEAR” concept or the “MANUFACTURING YEAR” concept.

• MODEL YEAR CONCEPT

In using this concept, the age of the vehicle could be determined from a letter in the 10^th position of a 17 character alphanumeric chassis number. Example a vehicle with its chassis number as GBA1J6LEK4ET69712 would have 2004 as its model year.

However, vehicles manufactured before 2001 have their ages determined by special alphabets allocated as codes to the year of manufacture. Thus A-1980, B-1981, C-1982, D-1983, E-1984, F-1985, in that series with the exceptions of the letters I, O, U and Q for obvious reasons, the letter I could be altered to read “T” or “L”, O could be changed to “Q”, U mistaken for “V” etc.  So a vehicle with a chassis number as A2300B281D9875632 would have 1983 as model year.    

The model year concept is applied to

All U.S./Canada vehicles, All Korean vehicles, Some Japanese vehicles (Mitsubishi, Isuzu), Some German vehicles (Opel, VW), Swedish vehicles (Volvo, Saab)

It should be noted that, all Japanese or European models manufactured for the American market or assembled in America uses the model year method by considering the 10^th letter in the chassis number the deviation to this rule, however, is FORD vehicles assembled outside the U.S. which rather uses the 11^th letter to determine the year of manufacture. Example a FORD Focus saloon car(U.K. model) with chassis number XYZUV348NCF12375A has 1985(F) as its model year and not 1982(C).

• MANUFACTURING YEAR CONCEPT

This applies to vehicles whose year could be determined from charts matrix based on the records of the manufacturer. Examples are some French vehicles like Citroen, Renault,  Some Japanese vehicles like Toyota, Mazda, Nissan,  German vehicles like Mercedes Benz, BMW etc.

These charts are usually provided by manufacturers through dealers of such vehicles.

So now that the age of the vehicle has been determined it's important to now check if it would be more than 10 years old as at when it would be entered for customs clearance in Ghana. The following rates are applied to a vehicle when  it’s over aged.

-private vehicles

Age exceeds 10 yrs but less than 12 years———- 5% of CIF value

Age exceeds 12yrs but less than 15 years———- 20% of CIF value

Age exceeds 15 years and beyond           ———– 50% of CIF value

–commercial vehicles(buses,vans etc)

Age exceeds 10yrs but not 12 years ————— 2.5% of CIF

Age exceeds 12 yrs but not 15 years ————– 10% of CIF

Age exceeds 15yrs but not 20years ————— 15% of CIF

Age exceeds 20 years and beyond —————- 50% of CIF

-commercial like trucks, Tipper trucks etc

Age exceeds 10 yrs but not 12 years ———— 5% of CIF

Age exceeds 12yrs but not 22yrs —————- 10% of CIF

Age exceeds  22 years and beyond ————  30% of CIF