the goan I network
PANAJI
Goa’s topnotch citizens who splurge millions on high-end SUVs and super-luxury cars but economise by registering them in other States and Union Territories taking advantage of lower tax slabs there have come under the radar of the Transport Department.
The department has on Friday notified that owners who have bought their cars a year ago and registered them elsewhere have to re-register them in Goa within a month or face criminal action for hoodwinking authorities with fake addresses to comply with vehicle registration formalities outside of their home State.
Hundreds of such high-end luxury cars plying on Goa’s roads are registered in the Union territories of Puducherry, Daman and Diu, and in States like Chattisgarh, Haryana, Delhi and Jharkhand which have lower slabs of taxes.
Due to this trend, the State is losing crores of rupees in revenue as residents prefer to purchase and register their high-end vehicles in these States and Union Territories. Transport department sources said, revenue up to a minimum of Rs 20 lakh per vehicle are lost due to this malpractice. To put end to it the department has issued the notice threatening criminal action on Friday, the sources added.
Director of Transport Nikhil Desai, when contacted, said Puducherry charges only around 2% in taxes whereas the rates in Goa vary between 2-18% of the ex-showroom rates of vehicles.
Admitting that the department does not have figures of the exact number of such cars plying in the State, Desai said the aggregate of revenue loss to state exchequer cannot be assessed at this stage but indicated that it is significantly high.
The notice issued by Transport Department quotes Section 47 of the Motor Vehicle Act, which stipulates that a vehicle registered in one State but moved to another for a period exceeding 12 months, has to be re-registered in the latter State.
The notice advises all such vehicle owners to comply with this section within a month. Failure to do so may result in prosecution under provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act 1988 and Goa Motor vehicle taxation Act 1974.
Earlier in August, the transport department had told officers to impound such vehicles registered outside the State.
As the trend to register vehicles outside the state is increasing the local auto trading industry is also losing business. The price of vehicles pan-India is almost the same after the implementation of Goods and Services Taxes (GST). However, the road tax which is outside the purview of GST is a state subject and every state levies different amounts of road tax.
Some states like Goa levy it on the value of the car and its percentage varies while some others do it on the basis of engine capacity.
For example, in States like Jharkhand, Union territories of Chandigarh and Puducherry the road tax is very low which explains why many vehicles plying in Goa have Registration Plates from there. One of the requirements for registering a vehicle is proof of permanent address in the State but a genuine difficulty could be faced by businessmen who have operations in multiple States.
Meanwhile AAP has welcomed the circular mandating re-registration and cautioned that it shouldn’t be a mere eye-wash.
“The Aam Aadmi party has been relentlessly pursuing the issue of plying of luxury cars registered in Puducherry. The Government has belatedly woken up to the reality of evasion of road tax by owners of high-end vehicles and issued a circular directing owners to re register their vehicles in Goa”, AAP General Secretary Pradeep Padgaonkar has said in a press release.
AAP had demanded that Puducherry CM as well as the Lt Governor Kiran Bedi order an investigation into the role of transport department officials in Puducherry in this racket as the problem is also a serious security threat.
