Come July 1, Transport Dept to collect goods, passenger taxes

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, May 26

From July 1, the Transport Department will collect passenger and goods taxes. The move will not only put an end to confusion and duplication, but also relieve the Excise and Taxation Department of the additional burden.

Earlier, owners of commercial vehicles had to deposit various taxes with the two departments. Lack of coordination between the departments often resulted in duplication. Vehicles having national permit had to deposit the goods tax with the Transport Department while taxis without the permit paid the tax to the Excise and Taxation Department. Apart from this, vehicles registered as state carriage had to deposit the passenger tax with the Transport Department while those registered as contract carriage had to deposit the tax with the Excise and Taxation Department.

The new system will help in timely realisation of taxes and those having pending liability can get it cleared before obtaining the annual fitness certificate from the Transport Department.

“The Excise and Taxation Department was preparing its modalities such as digitisation of data pertaining to tax collected by it under two heads of passenger tax and goods tax,” said Joint Commissioner of the department KK Sharma.

Since Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had, in his budget speech, announced that collection of passenger and goods taxes would be entrusted to the Transport Department, modalities for the change were being worked out.

Officials in the Excise and Taxation Department said quarterly registration of vehicles was under way and that owners would have to seek fresh registration from July 1 when the taxation system is likely to be implemented.

A revenue of Rs 150 crore is collected annually from the passenger and goods taxes by the Excise and Taxation Department. The taxes will now be collected by the Transport Department. “Officials will now be able to catch hold of tax evaders,” said Transport Minister GS Bali.

Officials of the Transport Department are working on the system and are studying models of other states, including Uttarakhand.