PANAJI
The road-tax hike is particularly steep for cars in the price bracket of ` 20 lakh and above. And that is bracket in which all cars of most premium brands like Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz fall.
From September 21, the road-tax has been increased to 18% from 10% on cars exceeding ` 25 lakh, ex-showroom price. Similarly, cars costing anything between ` 15 and ` 25 lakh will entail a hike of 5 pc road tax ie @ 15% .
Road tax hike has been severe on cars like the BMW, Audi or Mercedes-Benz cars which comes in the price range of above ` 20 lakh.
Sample this: One of BMW’s most famous cars in Goa is X1. Even for its most basic variant, the ex-showroom price is ` 30.56 lakh. The road tax has increased from 10% to 18% on this car, meaning 8% extra on ex-showroom price, which amounts to ` 2,44,480.
Moreover, the government has increased infrastructure development cess from ` 40,000 earlier to ` 50,000 now on cars in ` 20 lakhs to ` 40 lakhs price-range, which means BMW X1 price will go up by ` 10,000 due to this cess. Overall, BMW’s price is up by ` 2,54,480 due to increase in road tax and infrastructure development cess.
Higher the price of the car higher is the increase. Mercedes-Benz S-Class S 350 CDI’s ex-showroom price is ` 1.11 crores in Goa. Since the road tax has increased from 10% to 18%, it means a whopping ` 8.88 lakhs increase in road-tax on Mercedes-Benz S-Class S 350 CDI. The infrastructure development cess has increased from ` 1 lakh to ` 1.25 lakhs on cars in this price bracket taking the overall increase to ` 9.13 lakhs.
Auto dealers had last week called a press conference calling such a steep hike in road-tax irrational.
