Odisha: C&T Dept to Announce One Time Waiver in Arrear Motor Vehicle Tax

Bhubaneswar: The Commerce & Transport Department has decided to announce one time waiver and concession in arrear motor vehicle tax and penalty.

Under the proposed scheme, the tax and penalty will be exempted fully for those who want to scrap and de-register their vehicles. Similarly, the penalty will be exempted along with some portion of tax as per the age of vehicle, who wants to carry on their transport business by depositing the tax in concessional rate. Thereby, owners of old vehicles will come forward to scrap and deregister their vehicles. Similarly, the vehicle owners of less aged vehicles who want to carry on their businesses will be able to deposit the tax at concessional rates. At the end, very old vehicles will be out of road, the defaulting vehicle owners will be benefitted to a great extent and ultimately, Government will be able to recover a substantial amount, , the Department said.

“It has come to the notice of Government that arrear Motor Vehicle tax and penalty is pending against more than 50000 vehicle owners. In spite of tax recovery notice and conduct of special drive, arrear tax has been collected only from 4668 owners in the year 2022. The reason of such pending arrear tax is default on the part of vehicle owners in depositing the tax in time for a certain period. This leads to imposition of cumulative penalty on defaulting owners as per rule. When the amount becomes high, owners are unable to deposit the same. In some cases, owners approach the legal forum for waiver of the penalty because the litigation continues”, the Department said.

Further, as a measure of restricting vehicular emission, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Govt. of India have issued advisory to phase out old and polluting vehicles and requested States and UTs to announce one time waiver of pending liabilities for swift scrapage of Vehicle. Such initiative would attract vehicle owners of old vehicles to come forward to deregister the old vehicles by scrapping in Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facility (RVSF) Centers which is being done scientifically without any pollution, it added.