Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government’s ambitious amnesty scheme for vehicle owners who evaded road taxes in the state has come a cropper. The government had frozen a massive crackdown on Puducherry-registered vehicles to enable the owners to pay taxes in Kerala.
The scheme, announced in the latest budget, was expected to raise Rs 200 crore from taxes on premium vehicles. The motor vehicles department has only collected Rs 20 crore as on April 30, the last date of the amnesty scheme. Only 247 vehicle owners chose to pay taxes in Kerala to regularise their papers without paying hefty fines.
Many among the 622 tax evaders have either managed to obtain court protection or get their expensive vehicles out of the state. The government is unlikely to receive more than Rs 50 crore from the scheme, by a modest estimate.
The motor vehicles department had found out that at least 2,357 vehicles running in Kerala were registered in Puducherry, the union territory with a lower tax rate. The department served notices on 1,007 of them. The department had launched a crackdown against the violators by filing criminal cases against them for forging documents, while the February 2 budget called for a halt to the operations.
The offer was to waive the fines for those who paid up before April 30. As many as 138 vehicle owners had paid taxes in Kerala for their expensive vehicles even before the amnesty was announced. The government received Rs 13 crore from them.
The tax evaders who are yet to pay up include Suresh Gopi MP and actor Amala Paul, the department officers said.
Actor Fahadh Faasil had paid Rs 17.68 lakh as taxes soon after he was served a notice. He made use of the amnesty scheme to pay taxes for another vehicle.
However, several vehicles owned by celebrities have gone missing from Kerala roads, leading to speculations that they had got them transported to other states to resell them. If this turned out to be true, the Kerala government may never see the Rs 200 crore it had expected to bag.
